
Class F~-gL.G,'3. _ 



SAimiSONLW 1 )KH)SIT 



THE 



Albemarle Section 



OF 



NORTH OAROLIlSrA 



TRAVERSED BY 



THE NORFOLK SOUTHERN RAILROAD 



CONNECTING STEAMBOAT LINES. 




6^9 



ALBEMAELE SECTION 



NORTH CAROLINA 



TBAVERSED BV 



THE NORFOLK SOUTHERN RAILROAD 



CONNECTING STEAMBOAT LINES. 



P, E,V3M^^;nr» co;>,|3 



NEW YORK: 
John C. Kaxkis, Jr., Puinteb, 34 Coetlasdt Stbeei. 

1884. 



h3y3 



THE ALBEMARLE SECTION. 



INTRODUCTORY. 

North Carolina, with a history running back as far as 
the year 1584 — within a century of the date of the dis- 
covery of the New World by Christopher Columbus ! 
North Carolina with its grand area of 50,000 square miles, 
including mountain, valley and plain, with its every 
variety of soil, with its forests of valuable timber, with its 
broad sounds and its hundred rivers navigable far inland 
and teeming with the choicest varieties of iisli ; with its 
wealth of metals and minerals, and with its salubrious 
climate, has, strange to say, until within a compara- 
tively recent i^eriod, been next to unknown by the busy 
world around it. Along its 300 miles of Atlantic coast 
sailed the fleets of the adventurous discoverers of the 
olden time ; through its sounds, with their white wings 
spread to the breeze, were wafted the quaint vessels of 
Sir Walter Raleigh. On Roanoke Island was born 
A^irginia Dare, the flrst person born in America of 
European parentage. For North Carolina the great 
philosopher. Bacon, prepared the constitution of his 
ideal empire of perfect government. Within her borders 
North Carolina' s sturdy sons met together and were first 
to declare to the world that America is and shall be 
free ; and the blood of those brave men was freely shed 
in the trying struggle that followed that declaration, in 
defence of honor and of home. 

And yet, what of North Carolina at this day ! Upon 
an honest and candid inquiry into the causes of the 
present condition of this State, and why she has but re- 
cently started from lethargy, the following explanation 
may be accepted. 

In ante-bellum days, when slavery was a recognized 
institution — when the wealthy planters owned and con- 



trolled the laborers on Ms broad acres— the prevalence of 
ignorance to a great extent was a natural consequence ; 
not only to the slaves, but to those of the white race 
whose poverty compelled them to compete with slave 
labor. True, in those days, there were one or two col- 
leges in the State, and quite a number of schools of lower 
grade ; but these, owing to the then existing state of 
affairs, were of advantage chie% to the sons of the more 
wealthy. What, in such a state of things, was there to 
excite ambition, and what the inducements to press for- 
ward in the march of the world' s civilization ;: 

The vast stores of minerals and metal were then, as 
now, hid away in the mountains of the State ; but then 
the possessors of capital had quite another use for their 
surplus funds than to purchase expensive machinery and 
undertake to develope the State's mineral wealth ; and, 
besides, there was really no desire to experiment in un- 
tried fields, or to engage in enterprises other than such 
as related to the cultivation of the lands ; the universal 
rule being well enough will do. The forests were, as 
now, rich in valuable timbers, but these were regarded 
as of but little value except for farm uses at home. The 
sounds and rivers were then, as now, full of excellent 
fish ; yet fishing was an industry of a third or fourth rate ; 
it was followed mainly to the extent of obtaining supplies 
for home use with but a few exceptions. 

Agriculture was the leading and almost the only pur- 
suit, corn, cotton, rice and tobacco, were produced in 
immense quantities, and, as a rule, all surplus capital, a« 
soon as it came to hand, was invested in the purchase 
of land and slaves. And even the public treasury had 
but little that could be applied to the establishment of 
schools and to works of improvement, and all this tells 
the secret of the non- progression of a great State. 

But from the necessities of the case a new regime has 
been adopted since the close of the late war. 

The colored man is free and a citizen, and has to pro- 
vide for himself, and this he may well do, for he is pro- 
tected by State laws in all his rights of citizenship, and 
in every way encouraged to better his condition and raise 
himself to a higher one. 



5 

He sits on juries and votes; he has his own churches and 
schools. The property and polls of the State are annu- 
ally taxed for the support of public schools, and the 
colored man gets his equal share of the fund raised, and 
of the school-houses and teachers with the white man, 
and already the more industrious of the colored race 
have, with these advantages, been enabled to accumulate 
sufficient to purchase small farms out of the broad do- 
mains of their former masters, and both races are mani- 
festly benefited by the change. The great farms have 
been divided and re-divided, until, in many cases, a score 
of small farms have taken the place of one, and where 
one man raised 100 bales of cotton or 1,000 barrels of 
corn, twenty men now raise on the same land 150 bales 
of cotton and 1,500 barrels of corn. And here is positive 
evidence of advance that can but continue in ever increas- 
ing progression. 

In ante-bellum days a State or County fair or other ex- 
hibition of natural wealth of the State, or the results of 
industry were almost unheard of occurrences ; but re- 
cently both County and State fairs are not only the order 
of the day, but they are admited to result in great profit 
to the people. 

And yet North Carolina is not as fully awake to the ad- 
vanta,ges of such public exhibitions as she will be, and es- 
pecially does this apply to the eastern part of the State. At 
the recent exposition at Atlanta, this State took its first 
forward step in the right direction by endeavoring to ac- 
quaint the world with her boundless natural wealth, and 
with the products of her people's industry. 

At the more recent exposition at Boston she appeared 
again, and even to better advantage than at Atlanta. 
And that her exhibit at Boston was a decided success 
none will deny. Other States that were represented at 
these great fairs looked with pleasure and surprise on the 
exhibit made by North Carolina, and learned much of 
her grand resources and of the state and scope of her 
leading industries that they had never before known, 
and already immense profit to her has been the result. 



GENERAL DESCRIPTIONS'. 



lit is proposed to present a concise description of tliat 
part of the "Albemarle Section" of North Carolina con- 
sisting of the Counties of Carrituck, Camden, Pasquo- 
tank, Perquimans, Chowan, Dare, Tyrrell, Washing- 
liton, Hyde, Bertie and Martin, eleven counties, Avitli 
;an area of 8,770 square miles and a population, accord- 
ing to the census of 1880, of 94,505 — ^and to say some- 
thing of its location as a part of the State, and of its gen- 
eral physical characteristics and natural features, of its soil, 
its farms, forests and flora, its towns and villages, its agri- 
cultural productions, of its commercial location and 
advantages as regards the mark.ets of the world, its 
climate, its schools, its railroads and modes and conveni- 
ences of travel and transportation of freights, of the 
usual modes of farming, average yield of lands and 
pieces of lands, of labor, and of the reasonable induce- 
ments it presents for the profitable investment of capital, 
and for the emigrant from other States or from foreign 
lands to make it his home. 

It will be seen by a glance at the map that the eleven 
counties mentioned form one contiguous body in the ex- 
treme north-eastern ]3ortion of the State, bounded by Vir- 
ginia on the north, and the Atlantic Ocean on the east, 
and by about the latitude of Cape Hatteras on the 
south. In this territory are the whole of Currituck, 
Albemarle, Roanoke and Croatan Sounds, and the large 
part of Pamlico Sound. Its chief navigable rivers are 
North, Pasquotank, Little, Perquimans, Yeopim, Chow- 
an, Cashie, Roanoke, Scuppernong, Alligator, Long 
Shoal, Pamlico, Puttgo and Tar. Within it are Lake 
Mattamuskeet and Lake Scuppernong, and many crieeks 
that em;^ty1nto the river^ and bounds. The country is 



level, with an average elevation of about fifteen to twenty 
feet above the sea. Tliat j^ortion Of the sea beach callf^d 
''Banks," within this territoiy, is about 100 miles long, 
with an average width of one mile. Roanoke Island, the 
largest island in the territory, is about twelve miles long 
l)y two wide. Knott's Island, CroAv Island and Chui'ches 
Island, in Currituck Sound, are noted centres for the 
hunter of wild fowl. Most of the sounds and rivers and 
some of the creeks are navigable far inland for vessels of 
large class. About one-half of the whole area of 3,770 
square miles is at this day cleared and under cultivation, 
and about 1,000 square miles are still covered by virgin 
forest. 

Of the 1.800 square miles, more or less of forest lands, 
at least 1,500 are susceptible of cultivation, leaving in 
the territory 300 square miles that can not be used for 
farm purposes except after great expense of dyking and 
draining. The general character of the soil of the sec- 
tion is a sand}^ loam, with here and there 3^ellow and graj' 
clay, but the '* banks " are throughoitt of a yellow glossy 
sand, in many places constantly drifting, and, for the 
most part, utterly lacking in vegetation, although at 
places are tracks of stunted woodland where their accu- 
mulations of vegetable matter mingles with the soil, and 
at such places grapes, figs, melons and potatoes are cul- 
tivated with considerable profit. But little attention is 
given to the cultivation of these sands, the chief and 
almost only o^cupjation of the "banker" being fishing 
and fowling. Throughout the entire length of the banks 
is a government telegraph line, and all along, at a dis- 
tance of five miles apart, are life saving stations, and at 
intervals of twenty miles or so a great light-house con- 
structed of stone and brick is seen steepling up hundreds 
•of feet in the air. The islands of the sounds have, gen- 
erally, enough of vegetable matter mixed with the sands 
to render them very productive, and some of them 
throughout their whole extent are gardens of beauty, 
with here and there clumps and hammocks of trees and 
patches of corn and melons, and vinej^ards atid orchids, 
and flower fringed creeks and bays. ' '*** -"'• 



8. 

The mainland of the district, to wit : that part of it 
lying west of Currituck, Croatan and Pamlico Sounds, 
has in the composition of its soil much less of sand and 
more of clay throughout, but certain localities have far 
more of clay or of sand than other localities. The clay 
soils are " stiff" in proportion to the greater or less quan- 
tity of clay mixed with the sand ; the more sandy lands 
are easier of tillage and are less injuriously affected by 
extremes of dry and wet weather than the "stiff" lands,, 
andthe}'^ are on this account, as well as that the "loose" 
lands can be more cheaply cultivated, preferred by 
the farmer. There are strata of white sand, gravel, blue 
clay, marl, etc., underlying much of the lands both stiff 
and loose. 

The wells of water in this whole region are shallow,, 
and generally extend to no greater depth than the stra- 
tum of white sand from which spring abundance of clear 
water. In some of the more eastern counties are large 
areas — in some instances 50,000 acres in a bodA^ — of land 
known as " swamp land." There is something peculiar 
in these swamp lands — they are generally higher than the 
surrounding country, and are therefore easy of drainage 
and susceptible of cultivation. One of these tracts — a 
branch of the Great Dismal Swamp — has its summit 
nearly in its centre. This summit or greatest elevation is 
a ridge extending its whole length, from which the water 
shed is in opposite direction. A ditch recently cut from 
a creek, three miles back into the swamp, has a fall of 
eight feet in that distance which pours the water down 
in a torrent. 

Lake Drummond, at about the centre of the Dismal 
Swamp, has a general depth of about ten feet ; the sur- 
face of this lake is about on a level with the tops of the 
windows of the second stories of houses in Norfolk. The 
bottom of the lake is full fifteen feet above the streets of 
Norfolk. 

The explanation of the anomaly is that the "swamp" 
is literally covered and matted with rank vegetation that 
prevents the running off of the waters that fall on it, and 
they are so held until they can evaporate and ooze 



9 

through the sandy loam to the lower level of the rivers, 
on account of which slow process of draining the lands 
are almost continually wet, and hence are known as 
swamps. 

No doubt these swamps would long ago have been con- 
verted into farms but for the expense of clearing and 
ditching them by a sparse population with abundance of 
other lands at hand more cheaply and easily brought 
into a state of cultivation. But large tracts of these 
swamps have been brought into cultivation and have 
proved to be the very best and most productive and val- 
uable lands in the district, notably, the splendid planta- 
tion of 2,400 acres in Pasquotank County, belonging to 
Mr. George W. Sanderlin, the "Tadmore" farms in the 
same county, of Messrs. J. R. Etheridge, A. F. Stafford, 
W. C. Foster and others, the farms of Messrs. C. L. Petti- 
grew and Herbert H. Page and others in Washington 
County, and those of Col. W. S. Carter and others near 
" Mattamuskeet " Lake, in Hyde County. Some of these 
farms have produced, in exceptionally favorable seasons, 
as much as 120 bushels of corn to the acre without the 
application of manure, and as much as 66 bushels of rice 
to the acre. Tliere is no better region for the growth of 
the hay grasses, and as much as four tons of red clover 
and timothy have been raised on an acre. On these 
swamps grow vast tields of reeds, affording abundant 
pasturage for cattle through the spring, summer, fall 
and part of the winter. The top earth of the rich lands 
mentioned is a dark alluvium to the depth sometimes of 
two feet, based upon a stratum of sand and pebbles, or 
upon marl from two to four feet deej), beneath which 
comes generally tough blue clay and then white sand. 

On these swamp tracts grow vast quantities of timber of 
several kinds, but chiefly cypress and black gum and 
poplar, and maple on the deepest soils, pine on the 
stiffest and poorest sections, and juniper on the peety 
lands. The juniper generally appears in thick(4s or 
"greens,*" covering tracts of a half acre to 100 acres, or 
even more. This timber is in great demand for cooper 
logs, shingles, railroad ties, etc., and is cut and shipped 
to markets out of the State in large quantities. 



10 

:; Another thing may here be said in > connection witli 
#aese ''greens'';; The water; springs that bubble np at 
places through the peat is of a dark reddish color and is 
remarkably clear and healthful, owing in some degrees', it 
is said, to the tannic acid it contains,' atid will keep for 
years without bilging or becoming in the least stagnant. 
Some of it was experimented with to test its qualities in 
this i^articular, by the United States Government before 
the late war/ Large tanks were filled with it and put into 
the receiving ship" Pennsylvania'' at Portsniouth, Ya. 
After it had been in the tanks more than twenty years it 
was tested and found to be as pure and sweet as wdien 
put in, the only change in it was that it had lost its 
color and became as clear as 'Crj^stal. 

U. S. Vessels bound upon long cruises are now sup- 
plied with" jnniper water." No instance is on record 
of the juniper swamp hands being at any time troubled 
with malarial in any form while they drank this water. 

The "highlands" of the district, as all except the 
"swamps " are called by way of distinguishing them, as 
has been said, are the stiff and loose lands. The stiff 
lands are best adapted to the cultivation of wheat and 
corn and fruits of some kinds. The loose lands produce 
good corn, but are not adapted to wheat. On these lands 
the staples are cotton, j^eas, peanuts, sweet and Irish 
potatoes, melons, strawberries, grapes, and trucks of 
many varieties, but the best cotton land is a grayish 
sandy clay. 

Rice, the grasses and oats are best produced on the 
deep alluvial soils- The most valuable timber on the 
highlands is pine^ of which there are vast quantities 
throughout the entire district; in some localities are 
quantities of oak and maple, in others ash, maple of sev- 
eral varieties, gUm of several varieties, holly, dog- 
wood, etc. 

The tiora of this region is not surpassed in beauty, 
variety and luxuriance by any other section of the State. 
At one season yellov/ jassamine, crimson woodbine 'and 
the pure :w^hite dogwood predominate, filling the whole 
air with : their perfumes. At another wild roses, wild 



11 

cotton, and the scarlet leaves of tlie maple picture the 
forests and the river borders with beautiful tints, and at 
a,ll times during the spring, summer and autumn a thou- 
sand varieties individually less conspicuous than those 
mentioned carpet vi^ood and field with their myriad 
beautiful faces. 

With all the natural advantages the Albemarle Section, 
strange to say, has slowly recuperated from the destroy- 
ing effects of the late war. 

A new era has dawned and a new de})arture for better 
things is already so plainly apparent that he who runs 
may read the glad tidings of the nearing of a brighter 
day. And of the truth of the assertion that advance is 
now the watch-word, the intelligent reader will require no 
further proof than to know the facts following, briefl}' 
stated. 

There are double the number of school-houses that 
there were twenty years ago, presided over by carefully 
selected, competent teachers. An excellent public free 
school system is supplied with twice the amount of 
funds of former days. The school-houses are more com- 
fortably and conveniently arranged, and the text books 
uniform. There are twice the number of j/rivate schools, 
whose teachers are continually learning and adopting the 
improved methods of teaching. An increasing number 
of intelligent farmers are giving attention to the science 
of chemistry, adopting the most improved farm utensils 
and machinery, and are listing farming among the 
sciences. They are putting their farms in order by 
draining them, fencing them well, improving the dwelling 
and out-houses, taking pains with their teams and stock, 
experimenting with the different manures and commer- 
cial fertilizei'S, studying the character of the soils, and 
the diversity and rotation of crops. Our fisheries are 
being operated on iniproAed plans, the seines are laid out 
and drawn in by steam, and as a consequence five hauls 
of a seine can be made now in the same time that three 
were made formerly. 

There is a very much greater diversity of the industries, 
there being five manufactories now for one in the year 



12 

1860. And these are but a few of the gleams tliat augur 
the coming of a bright morning. 

And now, one word in addition to the preceding gen- 
eral statements; no fairer field for the profitable invest- 
ment of capital presents itself in the whole extent of the 
country. Nor can the emigrant find a better place for his 
permanent home. Is the farmer in search of lands that 
are both productive and cheap i Here he will find good 
lands that he can purchase at ten dollars per acre, or less. 
Is the mechanic on the look out for work at remunerative 
wages, and pleasant home for his family i He can rest at 
no better place, or one with a more hopeful future in 
view. Is the American manufacturer, who has been 
operating in New England, and North and West, in over- 
worked fields, casting about for new and more profitable 
fields^ He will surely find them here. From 50,000 to 
75,000 bales of cotton pass through Elizabeth City alone, 
yearly, on their way to the manufacturer. Why should 
not a large portion of this be manufactured before mov- 
ing ? Certainly the great Wendell Philips was not mis- 
taken when he said in substance, the manufacturer is 
wise who moves his machinery to the cotton field instead 
of waiting for the cotton to be moved from the field to 
the machinery. There are many opportunities of profit- 
able investment in various directions in the Albermarle 
district that the observant capitalist cannot fail to see 
and appreciate if he will but look. 



13 



HISTORICAL. 

Tlie Albermarle section first becaiine known to the civi- 
lized world in July, 1584, probably about the fourth day 
of the month, according to the computation of the new^ 
style. Its new birth into the family of civilized people 
was under most auspicious influences and circumstances. 
The illustrious Queen Elizabeth, most renowned of Eng- 
lish potentates, was upon the throne, and Sir Walter 
Raleigh, the most illustrious Englishman of his time — 
illustrious in arms, in letters, in enterprise, in gallan- 
try, in learning, and as the man who flrst introduced 
to the civilized world the commeice and use of tobacco, 
that has built up colossal fortunes in factory and field, 
that is one of the most i-emedial agents known to the 
Materia Medica, that has been a solace and a comfort to 
age and manhood, and that is the recognized symbol of 
good will throughout the woild, both savage and civi- 
lized, wherever man has smoked the calumet of peace, 
stood sponsor for it at the baptismal font of nations. 
In April, 1584, Sir Walter Raliegh obtained a patent from 
Queen Elizabeth and fitted out two ships, under Captains 
Philip Amidas and Arthur Barlow, which sailed from 
England and landed in July on Roanoke Islnnd, in the 
lower Albemarle Sound. First returning thanks to 
Almighty God, for protecting them in their perilous 
voyage, Amidas took formal possession of the country in 
"the name of Elizabeth of England as rightful Queen and 
Princess of the same.'' Amidas, in his report of the 
discovery described it as a "goodlie land, the fragrance 
of which, as they drew near the land, was as if they 
had been in the midst of some delicate garden, abound- 
ing in all manner of odoriferous flowers." The hard}' 
mariners were delighted with the natives and with 
the country. The Indians were kind, hospitable and 
generous, and Amidas and Barlow, after a shoit stay, 
returned to England in September, taking with them 



14 

two Indians, and creating a thrilling interest through- 
out England by descriptions of the country and its 
inhabitants. To give greater eclat to the discovery 
which had been made by Sir Walter's captains, the 
Queen named the country Virginia after herself, a 
Virgin queen. Public curiosjty was excited to see the 
new country and the strange people who were without 
guile, and in which the manners were like the " golden 
age." The spirit of adventure and the thirst for dis- 
covery was aroused, and there w^as no difficulty in enlist- 
ing new adventurers for a second expedition to Roanoke 
Island. On the 19th of April, 1585, Sir Walter Raliegh 
fitted out and dispatched a colony with Sir Ralph Lane 
as Governor, and they landed on Roanoke Island again 
in July. They remained about a year, but not effecting 
a permanent location, they returned to England dis- 
satisfied under the hardship and sacrifices incident to 
their adventurous life. Soon after their departure a 
ship loaded with every comfort came out from Sir Walter, 
and was joined by three other ships commanded by Sir 
Richard Greenville, but they sought the colony in vain 
that was brought out by Lane. After a fruitless search 
they returned, leaving fifteen men on the Island. In 
January of the next year, 1587, a third colony, more fully 
fitted out, furnished and equipped, was sent out by Sir 
Walter under command of John White, who was com- 
missioned as "Governor of the City of Raleigh." They, 
too, arrived in July. This colony of White's was accom- 
panied by women and children, and their purpose was 
to make a permanent settlement and a new home. He 
Avas accompanied by his daughter, Eleanor Dare ; and 
his grand-daughter, Virginia Dare, named in compli- 
ment to England' & queen, was the first horn of English 
parents in the new land. The fifteen men left by Sir 
Richard Greenville could not be found. But White's 
colony was not dispirited. They laid the foundations of 
the City of Raleigh on Roanoke Island, the remains of 
which still exist. They builded, they planted, they wor- 
shipped God, reared the altars of the Church of England, 
and admitted to the Communion of the Church the 



15 

Indian Manteo, by baptism. The grape and fig tree grew 
spontaneously around them, the earth yielded its increase, 
and it seemed indeed a goodly heritage. But strife with 
the Indians succeeded the hospitality of their first com- 
ing.. That irrepressil)le conflict of race which, commenc- 
ing then has gone on ever, soon arose and checked the 
happiness of the colony. White returned to England for 
assistance, leaving a colony on the island of eighty-nine 
men, seventeen women and two children. It was agreed 
that if the remnant of the colony should be compelled by 
any circumstances to leave Roanoke Island, the place to 
which they should go was to be designated, and if dis- 
tress overtook them they should indicate it by a cross. 
Upon his return to England White found the country 
involved in war with Spain, the rival in arms of England. 
Public attention was diverted from the infant colony, and 
it was more than two years before he could return to 
Roanoke. He came at last, but could tind nothing of the 
colony. He searched for some vestiges of them and 
found upon the shore, near the site of their settlement, a 
post with the word Croatan carved upon it. No sign of 
distress was carved near it ; no trace, no authentic tradi- 
tion, no reliable statement, no memento of that lost 
colony exists or has ever been found. The Indians knew 
nothing or Avould tell nothing of them. They passed 
away without mark or memorial, and will ever remain 
the lost link in the history of the Albemarle section. 
After this ineifectual attempt to make a permanent settle- 
ment on Roanoke Island, the spirit of adventure and dis- 
covery was diverted to Virginia, entering in at Chespeake 
Bay. And after hardships and imminent abandonment 
permanent settlements were effected on James River: 
they were, however, all the legitimate offsprings 
of Sir Walter Raleigh's enterprise on Roanoke Island, 
the germ and fruit of the seed then planted. The next 
ingress of settlers in the Albemarle section came from the 
James river country of Virginia ; the population of that 
section first coming over into the country on Nansemond 
River, and thence extending into the adjacent sections 
along Chowan and Roanoke rivers. It was in July, 



16 

again, in 1653, sixty-nine years after Amidas and Barlow 
had landed on Roanoke Island, that settlements along 
the upper Albemarle Sound first began to attract atten- 
tion. They were probably not organized colonists, but 
trappers, hunters and others, attracted by a life of wild 
adventures, and in some cases, perhaps, fugitives from 
the restraints of law and order. They probably banded 
together in considerable numbers for protection against 
savages and had no government among themselves except 
voluntary association and rude justice summarily ad- 
ministered. One Roger Green, of whose character and 
achievements history has failed to preserve any memo- 
rials, appears to have been the most conspicuous of these 
adventurers. Some refugees from religious persecutions, 
the fruitful source of our early settlements, had preceded 
him. 

' But the year 1662 may be put down as the date of the 
llrst organized permanent settlement in the Albemarle 
Section and George Durant, a Quaker broad-brim, as the 
proto-pioneer and permanent settler. Old George was of 
a genuine type of Friends ; careful, pains-taking, unos- 
tentatious, thrifty, obstinate, and fair in his dealings. 
He bought lands on Albemarle Sound in what was after- 
ward called Durant's Neck in Perquimans County, bought 
them of Kuscatenew, "King of the Yeopim Indians," 
paid for them fairly, and the deed is on record in Perqui- 
mans County, the oldest deed in North Carolina, the 
original of which on vellum was long in possession of 
Gen. J. H. Jacock, of Perquimans, who owned part of 
the original Geo. Durant tract. The deed is ]Drobably 
yet in the possession of Gen. Jacock' s descendants. For 
a long time in the early history of the Albermarle Section 
government was very irregular. The Quaker element 
was large and the religious sentiment was divided be- 
tween them and the communion of the Church of Eng- 
land. The latter had the authority from the home govern- 
ment and unquestionably exercised a severe rule over 
those dissenting in religious faith. Bitter feeling always 
prevailed and sometimes violent outbreaks, civic feuds 
and bloody contests. The dark and bloody history of 



17 

Cary' s rebellion, in which for years the colony was torn 
with the clash of contending arms, the peace disturbed 
and the public records destroyed ; all grew out of this 
religious contest between those who professed to follow 
in the footsteps of the meek and lowly "Prince of peace." 
The bloody struggles with the Indians are conspicuous 
in the early proprietory government of the Albermarle 
Section. About 1711 a general massacre of the white 
settlers, concerted and planned with great secrecy, was 
partially carried out. On the Roanoke and Chowan 
Rivers, in the counties of Bertie and Hertford, many fell 
by the murderous savage hand. It was suppressed, after 
imminent danger of entire extermination, with the assist- 
ance of our kind brothers from South Carolina. Omit- 
ting many interesting portions of Albemarle history our 
brief space brings us to the revolutionary period. In 
that time of trial Albemarle did its whole duty. The 
vestry of old St. Paul' s Church of Edenton were hardly 
behind the heroes of Mecklenburg in their oj)position to 
the unrepresented taxation of Great Britan, and, when 
peaceful but indignant protests were followed by sanguin- 
ary conflicts, her sons were not slow to buckle on their 
armor and lead or follow where duty called. And when 
the sword was sheathed and the soldiers arms were 
moulded into plow shares, she brought to the civil ser- 
vice of the country a fidelity and force that would do 
honor to any country. Peace brought iDrosperity and 
prosperity brought elegance and cultured refinement ; 
the Albemarle country was a blooming rose-bed of 
beauty, with rich farms, teeming fields, and a proud race 
of baronial planters, dispensing liberal and elegant hospi- 
tality and happiness all around them. Cruel war came 
again, civil war, intensifying the horrors of all wars, and 
all was changed, and the day of recovery is just begin- 
ning. 



18 



CLIMATE. * 

By reference to the mean parallels of latitude of the 
United States it will be seen that iSForth Carolina is 
situated nearly midway of the Union; and inasmuch as 
those States lie entirely within the temperate zone, it 
follows that North Carolina is situated u^Don the central 
belt of that zone. This position gives to the State a 
climate not excelled by any in the world. She is exempt 
from the extreme cold which prevails in the Northern 
States, and to a considerable extent from the early frosts 
which visit the States immediately north of her, on the 
one hand ; and from the torrid heat and malarial influnce& 
which prevail in the States to the south of her on the 
other. Other causes apart from its position concur to 
produce this result. On the west the lofty Appalachian 
chain interposes its mighty barrier between the bleak 
winds of the north-west and the general surface of the 
State. On the east the coast is swept by the Grulf Stream, 
the meliorating effect of which is felt far inland. From 
these causes combined the temperature of the seasons 
ranges within moderate limits. The spring comes in with 
less of those fickle variations which mark its advent else- 
where on this continent. The summers are not oppressive, 
even in the low country, or if so, for a few days only. 
But in the autumn nature here exhibits herself in her 
most benignant mood in her most favored zone. From 
the incoming of October to the latter part of December 
there is an almost uninterrupted succession of bright, 
sunny days, during which the air is dry, crisp and pure 
— a season equally favorable to the ingathering of the 
crops and to active exertion of every kind. The reign of 

* Hand-book of North Carolina, 1879-1884. 



19 

winter as respects cold and wet is short, and field labor 
is carried on throughout that season, with the exception 
of two or three days at a time. Frost makes its appearance 
about the fifteenth of October, and sometimes, there is not 
enough to nip the tender vegetation until the end of No- 
vember. From the Blue Ridge to the seaboard, ice rarely 
forms of a thickness to be gathered except in localities 
overhung and deeply shaded by high southern bluffs. 
When snow falls it covers the ground for only a few 
inches, and is quicklj^ dissipated by the sun. Fogs are 
of rare occurance, and then mainly in the form of a belt 
of light vapor marking the course of the larger streams in 
the latter part of summer and during the autumn months. 
The average rainfall throughout the State is fifty-three 
inches, which is pretty uniformly distributed through 
the year. 

Dr. Kerr, in his Geological Report, classes the climate 
of the different sections of North Carolina, with reference 
to their isothermal ranges, as follows: "Middle and 
eastern North Carolina correspond to middle and south- 
ern France, and western North Carolina to northern France 
and Belgium. And all the climates of Italy, from Palermo 
to Milan and Venice, are represented." 

Very erroneous impressions prevail as to the health- 
fulness of our climate, especially among the people of 
the North. That authentic and official information on 
this point might be presented, a letter was addressed to 
Dr. S. S. Satchwell, President of the North Carolina 
State Board of Health, from whose reply the following 
extract is made : 

"The labors of the board in the great cause of sanitary 
improvement and of preventive medicine, have already 
enabled us to arrive at very gratifying results for our 
State as bearing upon its sickness and mortality. There 
are few regions of the wliole earth where the conditions 
of climate are more favorable to health, human comfort, 
and physical well-being than are the climatic conditions 
of North Carolina, leaving out as exceptions certain cir- 
cumscribed local regions where malaria is liable to exist 
at certain seasons. There is not a more delightful 



20 

climate for pleasure or health than that ol: North Caro- 
lina. It is not excelled by the most favored climatic 
conditions of Italy or France. The climate of the eastern 
and middle portions of our State correspond to that of 
the middle and south of France, and that of western 
North Carolina to that of the north of France and Bel- 
gium — regions noted the world over for the geniality and 
healthfulness of their climate. The splendid climates of 
Italy from Palermo to Milan and Venice, are correctly 
represented in those of our own salubrious and health- 
giving State. Nor are the topographical features and 
geological structures of the State, so generally favorable 
to ready and efficient drainage — always a prime element 
of health — less adapted to the production of the low rate 
of sickness and of death that ^Drevails in North Carolina, 
outside of those localities of malaria, alluded to as less 
salubrious, and which, under the increasing application 
and dominion of the spade, axe and hoe, are steadily 
becoming more and more healthy as cultivation increases. 
So far as that prevalent and fatal scourge, consumption, 
is concerned, it has been found that one of the two small 
areas of total exemption in the whole country from this 
dread destroyer of the human race, is found in North 
Carolina. Nature, whether in the magnificence and 
wealth of our climate ; the fertility and adaptation of 
the soils as well as climate to the production of the 
various industries that are most conducive to the pros- 
perity of the people and the wellfare of the State ; or in 
the vast wealth of the underlying geological structures 
of the State, everywhere asserts, as statistics prove, that 
there is no State in the Union more healthy than North 
Carolina. With the natural conditions of insalubrity 
existing only in a local and exceptional degree, and 
giving way, as they will, before the great work of re- 
moval of preventable causes and preventable diseases, 
now happily inaugurated in North Carolina, by State 
authority, in the organization by the last Legislature of a 
State Board of Health, we can but cherish a lively and 
reasonable hope that the average rate of sickness and 
mortality will steadily decrease under the operation of 



21 

the benign influence of Sanitary science. Already it is 
less than the average in the United States. Sanitary 
statistics, such as we have been able to obtain in the 
prosecution of the official labors and duties assigned to 
the Board, combined with other information obtained 
from reports and data in our possession. Justifies the as- 
sertion that sickness and death in North Carolina pre- 
sents a rate less than one per cent, against an average of 
more than one and a quarter per cent.., taking all the 
States into the calculation in deducing an average 
rate." 

The following, *from a report to the State upon its swamp 
lands, presents the substantial facts about the health of 
this section : " Referring to the reports of Prof. Ebenezer 
Emmons, a former State geologist, he says it may be in- 
ferred that as the swamp lands are so low and wet, that 
they must necessarily be extremely unhealthy, or become 
so when drained and the vegetable matter begins to de- 
compose. Experience, however, does not suppoit this 
view. The testimony of those who have cultivated them 
for forty years is that their families have enjoyed as 
much health as their neighbors who have lived at a dis- 
tance. Persons who are in the habit of plunging into the 
swamp lands knee deep for draining, and, when drained, 
to live in the immediate vicinity of the extended surface 
of black vegetable mould for years, are rarely sick with 
fevers. The points which are unhealthy are those which 
are exposed to winds which blow off extended surfaces 
of the waters of the Neuse and Cape Fear rivers. 
Miasma, which generates fever, arises more from the 
banks of rivers than from the swamp and pocoson soils." 
And Gen. Blount, in a letter to Prof. Emmons, says : 
"I have been for a period of forty years engaged 
in reclaiming and cultivating swamp lands, such as 
I have described, and have found it a profitable busi- 
ness. I am located near the margin of the swamp 
(of which my plantation is a part) ; it contains 30,000 
acres, and is south of my residence. The health of my 

* Report on the Swamp LanJs, by Walter Gwinn, 1867. 



22 

family, white and black, will compare favorably with the 
healthiest locations in eastern North Carolina." 

Mr. Ruffin* says : "From the existing condition of the 
land and the waters of this lake region, every stranger 
would infer the general and worst effects of malaria in 
producing disease and death. But I was assured that 
such was not the fact, and that the residents suffered but 
little from autumnal diseases. And this I could readily 
believe, even after making the proper allowance 
for the too favorable view as to health 
which every man takes of his own place of residence. 
The people I saw had the appearance of enjoying at least 
ordinary good health. Among the number I saw there 
were three neighboring resident proprietors, each, of sev- 
enty or more years of age, and then in good health. Few 
of the residents remove to or visit the high lands in the 
autumn, and these few for short times, and more in pur- 
suit of pleasure than health. Nevertheless, admitting, as 
I believe is true, that the lake lands are much more 
healthy than the low main land (and what is called the 
dry land) of eastern North Carolina, still much improve- 
ment even in this respect would be made here by a gen- 
eral system of jjroper drainage." I could here make a 
concurrent statement of my own observations and expe- 
riences during the past thirty-seven years, which would 
be equally as striking ; but for brevity's sake I will con- 
fine myself to a single instance, that of Mr. J. M. Franck, 
who has resided upwards of forty years in Onslow 
County, on the western border of the great White Oak 
Swamp, in the fork of Cahoon and Squires Creeks, which 
unite in his plantation just before the confluence of their 
combined waters with New River ; and for twenty con- 
secutive years there was not a single case of fever on his 
place, and the attendance of a physician was not once 
required. These facts corroborate the views advanced by 
Dr Charles E. Johnson, in an admirable address on mal- 
aria, delivered before the Medical Society of North Car- 



* The late Hon. Edmund Ruffin, of Virginia, in "Sketches of Lower North 
Carolina." 



olina in 1851, and are conformable to my own experi- 
ence, namely : "As Chief Engineer of the State, I was 
engaged in draining swamp lands in Tyrrell County from 
1839 to 1843, a period of three years. The main feature 
of this drainage consisted in lowering Lakes Pungo and 
Alligator, each five feet. This was effected by cutting 
canals twenty-five and thirty feet wide resj)ectively, 
which dried a surface of about 70,000 acres that was cov- 
ered with water. Lateral canals were then cut twelve 
and sixteen feet wide, a mile apart. The work was done 
by contract, the average number of hands employed 
being about 250, all negroes, except the overseers and 
contractors. The latter were constantly exposed to the 
weather ; the negroes worked every day in water and 
muck, generally knee deep ; they, as also the overseers, 
were housed in shanties on the banks of the canals, and 
there was not a single case of fever on the work, nor was 
the attention of a physician required in any instance." 
In building the railroads from Petersburg to Blakely, 
from Portsmouth to Weldon, from Weldon to Wilming- 
ton, from Wilmington to Manchester, and from Goldsboro 
"to Raleigh, every variety of sandy soils, wet and dry, and 
every species of marsh, swamp and pocoson soils were en- 
countered and upturned, yet there were but few cases of 
fever, and they occurred chiefly at Blakely, which Avas 
the first terminus of the Petersburg railroad on the Roa- 
noke river, three miles below Weldon ; and on the Great 
Pee Dee river in Soutli Carolina, the intermediate points 
were almost entirely exempt, and remarkably so in the 
valley of the Cape Fear river opposite Wilmington, where 
the Manchester road crosses Eagle's Island, through 
Cypress swamp and neglected rice fields. Although the 
men employed were chiefly foreigners, disregarding the 
precautions given them to keep within doors at night, 
often slept on the ground on the timber used in the con- 
struction of the road, yet there was not a single case of 
agtie and fever among them, nor did any one of them lose 
more than two Or three days during the entire period they 
were engaged in the work, which was in the summer and 
autumn of 1853 and 1854. 



24 

While on the North Carolina Railroad from Goldsboro 
to Charlotte, after reaching Raleigh, ague and fever was 
of frequent occurrence on parts of the line passing 
through the argillaceous soils, and was particularly se- 
vere on the dry red clay ridge in Mecklenburg County, 
west of Salisbury. 

I am aware that these facts do not square with precon- 
ceived opinions, and cannot be explained by the popular 
doctrine of a specific miasma which eminates from a de- 
composition of vegetable matter. They prove exactly 
the reverse — that where poludse effluvia might be expected 
it did not arise ; that malaria and the product of vegeta- 
ble decomposition are two distinct things ; that the cause 
of fever does not emenate from vegetable putrefaction, 
but that exhalations from dry argillaceous soils, newly 
excavated, in which there is no vegetable matter, is a 
fruitful source of fever, and often of a virulent character, 
such as the typhoid fever that prevailed in Wake, west 
of Raleigh, in Orange and in Alamance counties, along 
the line of the North Carolina Railroad, during the pro- 
cess of grading." 

The simple and ordinarj'- precautions which any intel- 
ligent person will employ in preservation of health are 
efficient protection against the commonly accepted influ- 
ences of this section. Plain and well prepared food,, 
water from deep wells or cisterns, cleanliness and avoid- 
ance of night air in the autumnal months are all that i& 
necessary. 

A gentleman who lived for two years in the Albemarle 
Section during the construction of the Norfolk Southern 
Railroad, daily exposed in the open air during all sea- 
sons of the year, by the simple precaution of shielding 
himself from the sun, and drinking only filtered rain 
water, together with a plain and nutritious diet, avoided 
all trace of malarial influence. 

The following table compiled from observation taken 
through a series of years will show the range, rela- 
tions and general character of the climate better than 
description. 



26 



'Axiaman 

KVSH 



SK **- ^ 



■9ms 



•oas -MilY 



t-cicsr-oooosOtr-'^t— 0=or--Q050ir- 



•*1«1S 



oos5050oaiC505©t~'**-05t^occ5r— 1— I 
Vh e<i (M i-h i^i o 



a 3 S- 



O tI» ,__4 ^^ a^M (^tl ^^ ^M JQ O^ 



•Dog -eqiY 



•91«?S 



9 




<£ 


^ 


s 


g 


& 


« 



•09S 'sqiY 



•9l»»S 



•a i 



■a s 
£ a 



•D9S 'sqiT 



•»1»»S 



•!>9S'»qiY ^ 



•9WS I 2 



•09S -aqiY 



■9»«?S 



•09S -aqiY 



•9?«tS 



1—1 1— lr-( — rH^-t— (1— li— I — I— leOCO-n'CO'* 

^ 

^H ,Hi— li-Ci— I i-lr-l-^r-Hi— »COC^'<lJ<«<«M 

Oil— looosooiocsi— iG005005m«oi<ia5i— I 

■^lOcocco-^iiot^ocseoeocoi^coMao 
^H ^H — « -H to 

OMOoeseooii— i«ftco-i*i:~aoo»a>>o>— I 

— 1 t-i — ■— I o 

1— coc5or-cci— iovo«co»o-*eoooiO'« 

OOOOCi— i-^-^iCl^i— lOO'ti'-O-^TC 

sgi^ CO iQ ;o t^ ■ otoc c'M^^(>)to?^ -^i— I 
o;c<it— t—oo5-Hi»>'rHOi<niMO>eour5>n 

— iCJCO-^'J^O^iOtC— ' — (M'CCJ-^ — 
1— I^SrOOCCCMCO-HSMiMt^OOCO — IMM 
r- t- 00 XI g> 05 05 35 1^ CD 00 g> o: t^ O 
ov K n r^ -H CO e-J C5 ^^ o o i~ CO Oi o~. CO 

^t--aoaooa~aiOOoor-goooj-.GCtooi 
■COCOO; eOOCJCCi— lOSCOCJlO: o«o© 
-* ■>* -^ CO t^ OOt-^t^tC-^'-^UOt^cO'^CO 

co^*oo^-OOit*'-^CJ^-©^^^^^— ^Oi 



g ^Oj ej C cS 



(-s&h;^-<Si-b>^-!1«;'0'5Q t» r/3 -^ ^ >H 



26 



AGRICULTURAL. 



A comprehensive description of the extent, methods 
and results of general agriculture in the Albemarle sec- 
tion is beyond the scope and purpose of this paper. 4- 
few facts and illustrations have been collated and are 
presented with the expectation that to the practical agri- 
culturist they will suggest enough to prompt him to 
that inquiry which is the reward sought by this effort. 
Throughout this entire section cotton, corn, oats, sorghuni, 
peas, potatoes, especially sweet potatoes, and peanuts are 
:the staple crops. Upon the rich alluvions and the reclaimed 
lake and swamp lands, corn, with peas planted in the 
Intervals between the corn, forms the exclusive crop. 
Occasionally on the broad low-grounds of the Roanoke 
wheat is grown to a considerable extent. The upland 
variety of rice has been introduced within a few years 
past with entire success. The cultivation of jute also has 
been the subject of experiment with like success, and it only 
needs proper encouragement to be grown to any extentl 
;This section is everywhere underlaid with marl — a mixj- 
iture of carbonate of lime and clay formed by the decomf 
position of the imbedded shells — sufficient in quantity- 
when raised and applied to the surface, to bring it to g, 
high pitch of fertility and maintain it so. When cleared 
it yields good crops of corn and cotton for a few years 
without manure ; and always with slight help from 
projjer commercial fertilizers. There are other extensive 
areas where clay enters so largely into the soil as to form 
a clay loam. The counties on the north side of Albe- 
marle Sound — a very fertile tract of county — are exam- 
ples of this class. The alluvial lands of this section — 
lands always in the highest degree productive from the 



27 

fact that all the elements of fertility are intimately inter- 
mingled by having been once suspended in water — are of 
unusual extent and importance. The grain grown there 
supplies food not only for people of other parts of the 
State, but large populations in other States. There are 
other extensive areas where the shells of the Eocene era 
of the Tertiary formation — and which have been decom- 
posed by time — crop out to the surface and imj)art to 
the soil a high degree of fertility. Another class of land, 
in point of fertility equaling any in the world, is that re- 
claimed from some of the lakes of this section. To two 
of these, the process of drainage has been applied, lakes 
Mattamuskeet and Scuppernong. By canals dug from 
the lakes to the nearest streams, affording the necessary 
fall, a wide margin entirely around the lakes has been 
brought into cultivation. These lands seem to be 
absolutely inexhaustable. The cultivation of three- 
quarters of a century has made no change in their 
productive capacity. To the lands reclaimed from 
the borders of marshes — so frequent near the sea 
shore — the same remark may be strictly aj^plied. 
If the indications of nature are to be relied on, North 
Carolina, was plainl}^ marked out as the land for vine- 
yards. In the sober narrative of the voyage of Amadas 
and Barlowe made in 1584 to North Carolina, then an 
unbroken wilderness, the author tells us: "We viewed 
the land about us, being where we first landed very sandy, 
and low towards the water side, but so full of grapes, as 
the very beating and surge of the sea overflowed them, 
of which we found such plenty as well there as in all 
places else, both on the sand and on the green soil, on 
the hills as in the plains, as well on every little shrub as 
also climbing towards the tops of high cedars, that I think 
in all the world the like abundance is not to be found ; 
and myself having seen those parts of Eui'Ope that most 
abound, find such difference as were incredible to be 
written." Upon the visit of the voyagers to the house of 
the Indian King on Roanoke Island, wine was set before 
them by his wife. It is further mentioned that, "while 
the grape lasteth they (the Indians) drink wine ;" they 



28 

had not learned the art of preserving it. Harriot, a dis- 
tinguished man in an age of distinguished men, of whom 
it was justly said that he cultivated all sciences and ex- 
celled in all, visited the same coast in 1586, where he was 
struck with the abundance of grape vines, and he was 
impressed with the fact that wine might be made one of 
the future staples of the State. "Were they," he 
writes, "planted and husbanded as they ought, a princi- 
pal commodity of wines might be raised." This State 
has proved to be far richer in this respect than it is prob- 
able even he suspected. Grape vines were found in 
equal profusion in the original forest throughout the 
State. They often interlaced the trees to such an extent 
that they were a serious impediment to the work of clear- 
ing away the forest, catching and suspending the trees 
as they were felled. At this day if a tract of forest is en- 
closed, and cattle of every kind excluded, they spring up 
spontaneously and thickly over the land. Some of the 
finest wine grapes of the United States, the Scuppernong, 
the Isabella, the Catawba and the Lincoln, are native to 
this State. But it was long before the bounty of nature 
in this regard was improved. This was probably due to 
the fact that the State was settled almost wholly by emi- 
grants from the British isles, who knew nothing of the 
culture of the vine. It was planted here and there to yield 
grapes for table use ; but it was not until within thirty 
years that a vineyard was known in the State. Within that 
period several of large and a great number of small extent 
have been planted. Grapes in season are abundantly sup- 
plied for domestic consumption, and shipped in hundreds 
of tons. The wines of the established vineyards are held 
in high and just repute."* 

The following table, based upon reliable data ob- 
tained from the United States Census Reports, and 
especially gathered from the most trustworthy private 
sources, applies to the whole Albemarle Section.. The 
yield per acre is a fair average of the amounts pro- 
duced on the lands adapted to the cultivation of the 



*Hand Book of North Carolina. 



29 



several crops specified, with the indifferent appliances in 
general use. The best lands produce more largely, and, 
with improved implements and a better system of agri- 
culture, the average for all the lands would be at least 
double. The cost of making the crops is meant to repre- 
sent, as accurately as can be estimated by practical 
farmers, all the expense of making and putting the crop 
in shape for market, including the baling of cotton, 
threshing of small grain, expressing the syrup from 
sorghum cane, etc. The estimate does not include the 
rent of land, cost of improvements on same, or use of 
team and cultivating implements. Only the staple pro- 
ducts ajjpear in the table. There is no available data 
upon which to ascertain cost of raising trucks. The num- 
ber of acres cultivated by one horse vary with the char- 
acter of the soil. On the stiff lands, 25 acres is called 
a one-horse crop ; on the loose lands, from 3U to 40 acres. 
Thirty acres to one horse is, perhaps, a fair average. 





a 
o 

a 


s 
o 
o 




00 

1 


5 


Sweet 
Potato's. 


Hay. 


S 
o 


Average yield 1 
per acre, j ' ' 


250 lbs. 
Lint. 


25 
bush. 


10 
bush. 


20 
bush. 


30 
bush. 


200 
bush. 


tons. 


75 
sal. 


Cost of produc- [ 
tion per acre. \ 


$10 


$2.75 


$2.80 


$2.50 


$8.25 


$6.00 


$5.00 


$18.75 



The following table of values of lands in the Albemarle 
Section is based upon reports of the United States Cen- 
sus, 1880 ; the tax lists of the several counties, and from 
responses to letters seeking such information, made by 
fifty of the most intelligent and painstaking citizens of 
the section, from every county and nearly every part of 
the various counties. Any inaccuracies appearing in the 
tables are, without doubt, on the side of excessive market 
valuation. The actual average selling price of cleared 
lands in the Albemarle Section throughout does not ex- 



30 



ceed $8.00 per acre, and of timber lands 
doubtful if it reaches these figures. 



.50, and it is 





Average Asses'd Value 
Per Acre. 


Average Market 
value per acre. 


Average 


COUNTIES. 


All 
tested 
lands. 


Arable 
lands. 


Timb'r. 


Arable. 


Timb'r. 


from 

Shipping 

point. 


Bertie 


3.39 
2.84 
4.78 
2.35 
.73 
3.38 
3.14 
4.62 
4.52 
1.95 
3.16 
3.17 


5.00 
5.00 

8.25 
8.00 
3.00 
13.00 
6.83 
7.75 
8 25 
7.25 
6.00 
7.12 


2.00 
3.00 
2.50 
2.75 
.75 
3.00 
2.75 
3.50 
2.60 
1.25 
3.00 
2.46 


8.00 
12.00 
16.75 
16.50 

7.00 
20.87 
11.25 
15.50 
13.00 
10.00 
13.33 
13.10 


4.00 
3.00 

5.25 
8.00 
3.50 
7.37 
4.33 
7.75 
5.00 
2.80 
6.66 
5.25 


5t 


Camdea 

Chowan 


1 

2a 


Currituck 


l| 


Dare , 


2| 


Hyde 


2| 


Martin 


4 


Pasquotank 


44 


Perquimans 


4 


Tyrrell 


4 


Washington 


4 


Average for the Section 


3' 



31 



GARDEN TRUCKS. 

Though of coniparatively recent origin, this industry, 
nnder tlie quickening impulse of adequate shipping 
facilities provided by the Norfolk Southern Railroad, 
fairly promises to take rank equally with any agricul- 
tural interest in the section. This business is followed 
to a more or less extent in all the counties of the Albe- 
marle Section, but on a much larger scale in the counties 
north of the Albemarle Sound, traversed by the railroad. 
These counties annually produce increasing quantities of 
early fruits and vegetables and ship them to the great 
Northern markets. The advantages of soil, climate and 
proximity to market, by aid of cheap and speedy trans- 
portation, put the truck farmer of the Albemarle section 
in a position to realize all the benefits of these circum- 
stances. No section has superior advantages : few indeed 
will compare to it. The more southern sections — South 
Carolina and Florida — have earlier maturing crops, but 
this is counterbalanced by the increased time and cost of 
reaching markets with products impaired by transporta- 
tion. The truck farmer of the Albemarle section offers 
his products, maturing only a few days later, to the con- 
sumer in the Northern cities the day after they are 
gathered^ fresh and in good order. Being of the first 
fruits of the land reaching the markets seasonably, he 
enjoys all the advantages of prices aff'ected by an unsup- 
plied demand. The maturing season at Norfolk, one of 
the If^ading trucking centres of this country, is five or 
more days later than that of the Albemarle counties. 
These facts speak volumes. Many farmers throughout 
this section are to some extent displacing former agricul- 
tural staples for the new and more profitable truck crops 
— crops that yield three, five and not infrequently ten 
and fifteen dollars clear profit when the old crops yielded 
one. The trucking industry in the Albemarle country 
will become permanent, growing and prospering until it 
becomes a leading feature of its agricultural system, and 
until north-eastern North Carolina becomes the largest 



32 

and finest market garden of the great North. It will 
make the Albemarle farmer more prosperous, and will 
be one of the prime factors in the erection of the new, 
enduring prosperity that is beginning to brighten this 
favored section. 

Garden peas, snap beans, onions, cabbage, squash, 
cucumbers, Irish potatoes, watermelons and strawberries 
are the chief varieties of truck products raised in this 
section for shipment to Washington, Baltimore, Phila- 
delphia, New York and Boston. 

A few figures supplied by one or two leading farmers 
will serve the two-fold purpose of showing the value of 
the industry and the profits realized. 

Mr. C. W. HoUowell, near Elizabeth City, Pasquotank 
County, a leading farmer of the Albemarle section, 
planted about the first of February, on six acres of land, 
twelve barrels of Irish potatoes at a cost as follows : 

For seed; $30 

ten bags fertilizer 50 

500 bush. Cotton seed 50 

planting. 15 

cultivating , 8 

200 barrels and covers 50 

digging and shipping 20 

Total cost of first crop $223 

The yield for this crop was 200 barrels, which sold in Philadelphia 

for $2.75 per barrel net (a low price) $550 

Net profit from first crop $327 

$550 $550 
At the last of July, on the same ground, he planted a second crop 
of potatoes at the following cost: 

For seed $12 

' ' planting 12 

' ' cultivating 6 

" digging 12 

Total cost of second crop $42 

This crop yielded 537 bushels, sold for seed for $537 

Net profit of second crop $495 

$537 $537 

Total cost first crop $223 

Total cost second crop 42 $265 

Total receipts first crop $550 

Total receipts second crop 537 $1,087 

Profit first crop 327 

Profit second crop 495 $822 



$1,087 $1,08T 
Profit per acre ; $137 



33 

It will be noticed with interest that the profit in the 
second crop of potatoes was $168 greater than that on the 
first crop, or $28 greater per acre. Yet comparatively 
few of our farmers have learned the vahie of double-crop 
farming. This year Mr. Hollowell will make three crops 
of potatoes on the same land. In 1882 he sold his crop 
in the field for $5.00 per barrel. The same gentleman 
raised on thirty acres of land 1,100 barrels of Irish pota- 
toes, 800 bushels sweet potatoes, 400 bushels corn, 100 
bushels j)eas, 3,000 pounds fodder, 8 tons millet hay and 
75 gallons sorghum syrup, netting him over $100 an acre. 
He presents this as a fair annual product, and says that 
with good cultivation it can be done almost any year. 

Mr. A. A. Perry, nearEdenton, Chowan County, raised 
this year from twenty-six acres of land, in garden peas, 
1,090 boxes of five bushels per box, which netted him 
$1,970. Upon the same lands he has now crops of cotton, 
and peanuts that will produce — the cotton about a bale 
per acre, the peanuts from 100 to 120 bushels. Appor- 
tioning the land equally between the two crops, we have 
a result illustrating at once the profit of trucks and the 
benefit of rotating crops. 

Net profit on peas, $1,970 

Value 10 bales cotton, 500 

" 1,000 bushels peanuts, .... 1,500 

$3,970 

With the most liberal allowance for cost of making 
the two crops and marketing the second crop, Mr. Perry 
will make over $100 an acre on his land. He has a small 
field of five acres which has already netted him $229 from 
Irish i)otatoes (in a bad year) and on which corn is now 
growing that will yield sixty bushels per acre, or 300 
bushels for the field, worth $200. These figures are pre- 
sented not to mean tliat any farmer, on any land, with 
any sort of farming, can make $100 per acre, as Mr. Hol- 
lowell, Mr. Perry and others have done and are doing. 
They are only intended to show the value of truck as a 



34 

money crop in the Albemarle section, and to illustrate 
the advantages of farming by approved methods. Yet 
it may be said without exaggeration that in this section 
thousands upon thousands of acres of land can be bought 
at a very low figure, just as good naturally, and with 
care can be made to yield just as much as Mr. Hollo well' s 
or Mr. Perry's. 



35 



FISHERIES. 

The fisheries of North Carolina are the most important 
on the South Atlantic coast. The shad and herring fish- 
eries are the most extensive and important of any State, 
and the fisheries of the Albemarle section of IS'orth Caro- 
lina are larger, and the products more valuable than 
those of the balance of the State combined. Especially 
is this true of the seine fisheries. It is estimated that 
300,000 yards of seine are operated in the Albemarle 
Sounds. In addition there are thousands of stake, drift, 
pound, and other kinds of nets operated in the great 
sounds and rivers in this section. The largest of the 
seines are some 2, 500 yards in length, about a mile and a 
half. From end to end of the hauling ropes, when the 
seine is out, the distance is nearly four miles. The seines 
are "shot," that is carried out and deposited in the water, 
by steam flats, and steam power is also used in bringing 
them to shore with their great loads of fish. Formerly 
the "shooting" was all done by means of boats manned 
by from sixteen to twenty-four sturdy oarsmen, but the 
inventive genius of a citizen of the Albemarle Section 
opened the way to better and more rapid methods. To 
Capt. Peter Warren, of Edenton, is due all the credit 
for that great modern convenience of the large fisheries 
known as the steam-flat. The varieties of valuable fishes 
frequenting the waters of the Albemarle Section in great 
numbers are numerous. Chief among the commercial 
fishes are herring, shad, rock (striped bass), mullet, blue 
fish, Spanish mackeral, chub, (black bass,) perch, stur- 
geon, menhaden, trout, spots, hog-fish, croakers, and of 
the shell fish, oysters and clams. The crab, so abundant 
in many places, is the arch enemy of the gill netter, having 



36 

no respect for either the nets or its finny captives, and 
destroying both with apparently equal relish. Even this 
Ishmaelite of the waters is sought for profit, being pre- 
pared for market at Hampton, Ya., and other places on 
the coast. The herring as he is universally called, in 
reality an ale-wife, is entitled to the distinction of king 
of our commercial fishes ; not that his flavor is so fine as 
of dozens of other varieties, or that he brings even a 
hundreth part of what other fish sometimes bring, but 
because he never fails to come, be the season good or 
bad. 

From fifty to a hundred thousand herrings, and often 
twice that number are frequently taken at a single haul 
of a large seine in a good season. It is reliably stated 
that as many as 400,000 herrings have been sa^ed from a 
single haul of a seine in Albemarle Sound, thousands of 
fish escaping and being thrown away for want of hand-, 
ling facilities. 

Herring are cured in salt and stored in barrels and 
kegs. Three grades of them are prepared for market — 
cut, roe and gross. They are also cured by smoking, 
though on a much smaller scale. The other most valua- 
ble species of food fish taken in the Albemarle waters are 
shad and rock, caught in great numbers in Albemarle 
Sound and its tributary streams, and to a less extent in 
the Pamlico Sound and its tributaries. These fish (and 
others, as perch, cliubs, etc.) are packed in ice and 
shipped fresh. The North Carolina shad command the 
highest prices because they begin to ' ' run ' ' first and are 
early on the market. Thus, while the State of Maryland 
is credited by the census with a slightly larger catch of 
shad, the price realized for the North Carolina shad is so 
much greater that the value of the catch is more than 
double that of the Maryland fishery, because the shad 
are marketed before fishing begins there. The quantity 
of sbad taken in the waters of this section in a good year 
is between three and four million of pounds. The shad 
is a much more timid fish than the herring and not so 
easily entrapped. At the head of the Albemarle Sound, 
made fresh by the volume of water from the Roanoke, 



37 

Casliie, Chowan and other rivers, is the favorite spawning 
grounds of the shad, and it is in their passage hither that 
they are ensnared in the seines and nets all through the 
sounds and rivers. At Avoca, at the head of Albemarle 
Sound, is a hatchery for shad furnished with the most 
apjDroved appliances. It is a State institution, and the 
Avork is done under the auspices of the State Board of 
Agriculture, by Mr. Stephen G. Worth, Superintendent 
of Fish and Fisheries. Millions of shad fry have been 
artificially hatched at this station and turned loose in 
the inland waters of the State. The number placed in 
the streams tributary to the Albemarle Sound from 1877 
to 1880 was 10,963,000 ; in streams tributary to Pamlico 
Sound, 3,846,000. 

The following summary represents the statistical re- 
view of these fisheries : 

Persons employed 5,274 

Fishing Vessels 95 

Fishing boats 2, 714 

Capital dependent on fishing industries $506,561 

Pounds of sea products taken, including oysters 11,357,300 

Value of same $280,745 

Pounds of river products taken 20,892,188 

Value of same . $546,950 

Total value of products to fishermen $827,695 

It is not deemed expedient here to take up the several 
commercial fishes of the Albemarle Section and treat 
them in detail, nor even to mention all the very many 
species of the food fishes. Enough has been said to im- 
press the reader with the real importance and magnitude 
of this industry. It may be well to add that the Albe- 
marle fisheries in 1880 had about quadrupled their pro- 
duct of ten years before, and that there is still plenty of 
room for all comers. The business has not begun to ap- 
proach its full development. 

The shell fish of these waters, however, merit some 
mention. There are extensive beds of clams on the 
banks, and they are taken from their beds in the sand 
in great numbers ; the demand is largely local, but the 
volume of export is increasing through shipments to 



38 

'New York. The oyster interests of this section bid fair 
at an early day to assume large proportions by the aid 
of favorable legislation and by proper culture. The 
Pamlico Sound and its tributaries form a vast natural 
oyster field that, with improved methods of culture, will 
supply a large demand. 

The whole floor of the sound, covering hundreds of 
square miles, can readily be converted into productive 
oyster fields. In many iDlaces the natural oyster rock 
now covers the bottom for miles, and oysters can be 
gathered in quantities at a cost of about twenty cents 
and less per bushel. Some of these oysters are of su- 
perior size and quality ; in places where they have been 
artificially planted they compare favorably with the best 
cultivated products of the Chesapeake Bay. 

The statutes of North Carolina restricting the amount 
of oyster beds to be entered by one man to ten acres, is a 
restriction upon outside caj)ital from coming in and de- 
veloping these interests. It is probable the next legisla- 
ture by remedying this difiiculty, will offer inducements 
for the development of this, one of the most important 
and valuable of Eastern North Carolina's exhaustless 
resources. 

Several highly prized varieties of turtle and terrapin 
are to be found in quantities in the waters of the Albe- 
marle Section. Diamond-back terrapins, the most valua- 
ble of them all, abound in places and are taken and 
shipped in considerable quantities. 



39 



TRANSPORTATION. 

There is no respect, perhaps, in which this territory, 
so peculiarly qualified by nature to be a pleasant dwell- 
ing place, has been more favored than in the facilities 
provided alike by nature and art by which to go back 
and forth to the marts of the land. 

Broad sounds, winding rivers and deep estuaries inter- 
sperse the land traversed by railroads. The numerous 
steamers and countless sail which navigate these waters, 
have access through the inlets of the sea, and by canals, 
to all the ports of the coast. The railroads, with their 
steamer connections, reach, the most remote and secluded 
j)laces in the section. There is no part nor inhabitant of 
it, so isolated as to be deprived of the benefits of frequent, 
speedy, regular and inexi^ensive commerce with other 
men and places. 

The principal lines traversing the Albemarle section 
are the Norfolk Southern Railroad, and the steamboats 
of the same Company, the steamboat lines of the old Do- 
minion Steamship Company and the Roanoke, Norfolk 
and Baltimore Steamboat Company. 

The Norfolk Southern Railroad. 

This road was built in 1881, from Norfolk, Va., through 
Elizabeth City and Hertford, to Edenton on the beautiful 
bay of that name, at the western end of Albemarle 
Sound — a distance of 74 miles. 

It is well built and thoroughly equij)ped, providing 
adequate facilities for travel and shipment to a con- 
tiguous territory wonderful for its fertility and the 
abundant diversity of its products. 

Stations at short intervals, and numerous private sid- 
ings — furnished upon liberal terms to shipx^ers — have 



40 

diverted to the road the business .of the tributary coun- 
ties from channels through which it flowed for a century ; 
new lands have been cleared ; mills and factories have 
been established ; new industries started and old ones 
enlarged, and otherwise its impress has been stamped on 
all the features and values of the section. 

Connecting steamers bring to it from the sounds and 
rivers, fruits and products of the land, fish from the sea, 
and fowl from the air, which over this road are speedily 
conveyed by lines radiating from Norfolk, to the markets 
of Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York and Boston. 

The policy of the Company has been to provide the 
facilities above generally described to the whole section 
as rapidly as possible, and without reference to immediate 
return. In addition to its road it has provided steam- 
boats to run between Elizabeth City and the villages and 
settlements along theriversand sounds. The Company's 
steamers, "MaryE. Roberts" and " Martha E. Dicker- 
man," reach all landings on Pasquotank, North, Alli- 
gator, Scuppernong and Little Rivers, and thereby extend 
to these heretofore remote and inaccessible localities all 
the benefits and advantages of the railroad. 

By prompt employment of necessary appliances and 
terminal facilities it is meeting the demands of all the in- 
terests of the section, not alone moving the crops out and 
merchandize in, but the coal, ice, salt, lime, and the 
coarser freights for the full development of the region. 
Not only the lumber manufactured along the road, but 
the logs themselves, cut beside the road, and brought 
miles by water to it, is carried to mills at Norfolk. Its 
ample and suitable equipment permits the running of 
numerous and fast trains, which, with its superior con- 
nections at Norfolk, have largely increased perishable 
trafiic — fish, game, fruits, vegetables, etc. Brought to 
the road by steamboats from all points in Eastern North 
Carolina, from the Upper Roanoke River to Cape Look- 
out, they are in the market stalls of Washington, Balti- 
more, Philadelphia, New York and Boston in a fetv 
hours. 



41 

The Old Dominion Steamship Co^rPANY. 

This Company has been a prominent factor in the mate- 
rial development of Eastern North Carolina. For many 
years its vessels plied between Norfolk and Newberne and 
Washington through the Albemarle and Chesapeake 
Canal until the completion of the Norfolk Southern Rail- 
road to Elizabeth City, when connection was made there 
with the road, thus reducing the time between North 
Carolina cities and the Northern markets. 

The Company's fleet in North Carolina now^ comprise 
the following fine steamers : 

The " Shenandoah" - -A large full powered side- wheel 

steamer makes semi-weekly 
trips between Newberne and 
Elizabeth City. 

The "Newberne" An iron propeller, large and 

commodious, makes semi- week- 
ly trips between Elizabeth City 
and Washington, N. C. 

The "Beaufort," and 

"R.L.Myers" On Tar River; run on daily 

schedules between Washington 
and Tarboro. 
The " Washington".. -Covers Pamlico River, reaching 

points in South Creek, Pungo 
River, Bath, etc. 
By the activity of all these steamers, built especially 
for the business, immense quantities of the products of 
field, forest, stream and sea, corn, cotton, rice, jDOtatoes 
and other vegetables, fruits, rosin, turpentine, woods 
and lumber, fish, oysters and clams are gathered up and 
transported speedily and cheaply by their connecting- 
rail and steamer routes to the great markets of the coun- 
try—Norfolk, Baltimore, Washington, Philadelphia, New 
York and Boston, and through these ports to the great 
West and foreign ports, drawing back in exchange all 
kinds of manufactures. The maintenance of these lines 
serve to connect the towns and business centres of this 



42 

wide section with tlie great arteries of commerce ; and it 
is safe to say that no section of the country similarly 
situated enjoys greater facilities for the safe, speedy and 
economical transiDortation of men and materials than 
does the tide-water section of Eastern North Carolina. 

The Company's mainline forms the connecting link at 
Norfolk for New York and the North and East, and its 
magnificent fleet of powerful iron steamships, with the 
finest passenger accommodations, make almost daily 
trips between those points. 



The Roanoke, N^okfolk and Baltimore 
Steamboat Company, 

The completion of the Norfolk Southern Railroad 
to Edenton made possible a quick and positive con- 
nection between the Roanoke River and Norfolk and 
Baltimore, and this Steamboat Company stood ready to 
seize the opportunitj^ whereby its steamers have since 
enjoyed the principal traffic of the river. Possessed at 
that time of a number of steamboats, it has since added 
to its fleet three large, powerful and swift boats, which 
fully meet all the requirements made upon its equipment. 
Its service is of two kinds, viz : between river points and 
the Norfolk Southern Railroad at Edenton daily and 
semi or tri- weekly, and between Baltimore and the river 
direct, weekly. In the first line are employed the elegant 
passenger and freight steamers "Plymouth" and "Ham- 
ilton," and on the other route the fine iron steamers 
"Conoho" and "Meteor," all of them having been 
designed and built for the service performed by them. 

At Williamston, connection is made with the Albemarle 
and Raleigh Railroad to Tarboro — and at Jamesville with 
the Washington and Jamesville Railroad to Washington. 
Both of these roads are efficient feeders of the line, and 
combined furnish facilities which have developed, in 
increasing degree each year, all the commercial, agricul- 
tural and fishing interests of the Roanoke watershed. 



43 

The route from Tarboro and Washington ma this line 
is a favorite one of passengers, who tind a satisfactory 
relief from the tedium of travel in the fast and comfort- 
able steamboats, the pleasant ride upon the waters of 
this historic stream, and the short rail ride from Edenton 
through fair, broad and cultivated lands to Norfolk. 

All the towns reached by this line, Plymouth, Wind- 
sor, Janesville, Washington, Williamston, Hamilton, 
Robersonvllle, Bethel and Tarboro, display, with pecu- 
liar force, the beneficial results of frequent and efficient 
communication as afforded by this company. 



Other transportation facilities are provided by the 
Albemarle and Chesapeake Canal, having about seven 
feet of water and locks 220 feet long and 40 feet wide ; 
and the Dismal Swamp Canal, with locks 100 feet long 
and 16 feet wide. A number of steamers and other ves- 
sels navigate these canals and carry a considerable part of 
the commerce of the Albemarle section. 

The Albemarle Steamboat Company runs a steamboat, 
the "Chowan," on the Chowan and Blackwater Rivers, 
between Plymouth and Edenton, N. C, and Franklin, 
Ya., connecting there with the Seaboard and Roanoke 
Railroad. 



44 



GOVERNMENT AND TAXATION. 

The government of North Carolina is a pure dem- 
ocracy. It is based upon the will of the people as ex- 
pressed in the Constitution, an instrument framed by 
them in their sovereign capacity through delegates 
appointed for that purpose. The will of the people of 
this and of each State, when thus expressed, and in con- 
formity to the Constitution of the United States— for the 
will of the people of each State is subordinate to the 
collective will of the people of all the States— is the 
supreme law. The State Constitution thus made is the 
measure and test of all laws passed by the Legislature, 
and these laws must stand or fall by their agreement or 
disagreement with it. 

The Constitution is a short instrument but wide in its 
scope and bearing. It contains a brief statement of the 
fundamental principles of civil and individual liberty, 
creates the different departments of government — 
Executive, Legislative and Judicial — and prescribes the 
powers of each ; establishes Educational, Charitable and 
Penal institutions ; directs who shall be liable to duty in 
militia ; and prescribes the rights of citizenship. 

The Legislature enacts laws. The Judiciary passes 
upon them when a question arises as to their constitu- 
tionality, and expounds them when a question is pres- 
ented as to their meaning. The execution of the law is 
entrusted to the Executive. The Executive in this State 
possesses no veto upon the acts of the Legislature. 
When the law is once made his duty, as that of every 
other citizen, is obedience in his sphere. 

The rights of citizenship is the only point for consid- 
eration here ; and these depend upon age, residence and 
previous citizenship. 

A citizen of a foreign country can make himself a citi- 



45 

zen here by becoming a resident ; declaring before the 
proper tribunal his purpose to become a citizen ; and tak- 
ing the prescribed oath of allegiance. 

A citizen of any other of the United States becomes a 
citizen here by changing his residence from that State to 
this. 

All persons who are born and continue to reside within 
this State are citizens thereof. 

The chief privilege of citizenship is suffrage. The Con- 
stitution ordains that, ''every male person born in the 
United States, and every male person who has been 
naturalized, twenty-one years old, or upward, who shall 
have resided in this State twelve months next preceding 
the election, and ninety dsiys in the county in which he 
offers to vote, shall be deemed an elector." 

Suffrage here embraces the right to vote for every 
officer in the State from the governor down to constable. 
One only excei^tion to this principle exists in this State 
— that is in the case of Justices of the Peace. These are 
appointed by the Legislature. Logical consistency was 
sacriliced in this case to secure what, in the judgment 
of the Convention, was a point of far higher import- 
ance, namely, the sound administration of justice in the 
county, and the administration of county finances, both 
of which are under the control of the Justices. In many 
of the eastern counties the colored population largely 
predominates. Newly emerged from slavery, and conse- 
quently ignorant of the duties of citizenship ; ignorant of 
the law, and therefore incapable of administering it ; 
themselves without property and therefore without the 
judgment necessary to administer the finances of a com- 
munity ; it was deemed best to repose the power of mak- 
ing magistrates in an another body ; thus guarding those 
communities against error, whether of ignorance or 
design, until experience and education should make 
those colored majorities safe repositories of such power. 
This provision of the Constitution was inspired by no 
feeling of enmity toward^the colored man ; it was a pro- 
vision of safety as well for the colored as for the white 
man. The provision was made impartial in its opera- 



46 

tion ; it applies to eveiy county in the State, whether the 
majority be white or black, and the object was secured. 
No such provision was necessary in the cases of officers 
elected by general ticket, for there the experience of the 
white population accustomed to the exercises of citizen- 
ship and educated to its responsibilities would counter- 
balance the inexperience of the colored race. 

Citizenship under the Constitution of North Carolina 
carries with it high and important rights apart from 
suffrage. It confers a right to an education by the State, 
such as will qualify the citizen for the duties to be per- 
formed. If he be without property it gives him the right 
to support from the county if incapable of earning it by 
sickness or old age. If he have property and is over- 
taken by irremediable misfortune, it exempts from exe- 
cution personal property to the value of five hundred 
dollars, and vests in the owner in fee simple the home- 
stead and the dwellings and the buildings used there- 
with, not exceeding in value one thousand dollars, to be 
selected by him. The unfortunate have thus a secure 
refuge in case of disaster in business. 

It regulates taxation by providing that the General As- 
sembly levjdng a tax shall state the object to which it is 
to be applied, and enjoins that it will be applied to no other 
purpose. It establishes an equation between the property 
and the capitation tax by directing that the capitation 
tax levied on each citizen shall be equal to the tax on 
property valued at three hundred dollars in cash. The 
capitation tax is levied on every male inhabitant in the 
State over twenty-one and under fifty years of age, which 
shall never exceed two dollars on the head. The effect 
of this limitation upon the capitation tax restricts the 
tax on each hundred dollars worth of property to sixty- 
six and two-thirds cents. It further directs that the 
amount levied for county purposes shall not exceed the 
double of the State tax, except for a special purpose and 
with the approval of the Legislature. 

The rate of State tax levied for the present year is 
twenty-five cents on one hundred dollars, besides twelve 
and a half cents school tax. 



47 



EDUCATION. 

Tlie Constitution of North Carolina, adopted in 1776, 
ordained as a part of the fundamental law, that "schools 
shall be established for the convenient instruction of 
youth, with such salaries to the masters, paid by the 
public, as may enable them to instruct at low prices." 
As soon as the resources of the State permitted, this pro- 
vision of the Constitution was carried into effect. Long- 
before the civil war the system of common schools in this 
State had attained a full development. A fund of two 
millions of dollars had been accumulated, the income 
from which was su^Dplemented by annual api)ropriations. 
From 1852 to 1861 our educational progress attracted 
general attention and admiration. This fund was en- 
gulfed in the war, and the sj^stem had to be built up 
anew from the very foundation. 

The provision for State education under the new Con- 
stitution of North Carolina, if not equal to that of some 
other States, is yet liberal. The Constitution sets apart 
a large extent of land, and api)ropriates all moneys aris- 
ing from certain specified sources, for establishing and 
maintaining free public schools in the several counties of 
the State. Further, it directs the appropriation of 75 per 
cent., at least, of the State and county capitation tax to 
the same purpose. The moneys from these sources form 
a permanent fund for education, which cannot be diverted. 
The legislation of the last few years shows a growing- 
sense of this great interest. That of the session of 1881 
was a marked advance on any that had gone before. In 
addition to the provisions specified above, a tax of twelve 
and a half cents was levied on every hundred dollars 
worth of property and credits, and the tax on the poll 
was correspondingly increased thirty-seven and a half 
cents in aid of the education fund. The revenue from 
these sources was reckoned to be fully adequate to keep 



48 

open the public schools for four months in the year. If 
the tax thus levied should prove insufficient to maintain 
one or more schools in each district for the period named, 
the county commissioners are required to levy annually 
a special tax to supply the deficiency. The ages for ad- 
mission to the public school range from six to twenty-one 
years. 

The organization provided for administering the com- 
mon-school system is sound and judicious. The Consti- 
tution provides a State Board of Education, which has 
full power to legislate in relation to free public schools, 
and the educational f and of the State. Its legislation is 
subject, however, to be altered or amended by the Gren- 
eral Assembly. A Superintendent of Public Instruction 
presides over and directs the operations of the whole 
system. 

Corresponding to a State Board and State Superinten- 
dent, there is a County Board and County Superintendent. 
The County Board is charged with the general manage- 
ment of the public schools in their respective counties. 
The County Superintendent examines applicants for posi- 
tions as teachers, visits and. inspects the public schools, 
advises with teachers as to methods of instruction and 
government, and he may, under regulations prescribed, 
suspend teachers if incompetent or negligent ; his action 
in the latter case being subject to review by the County 
Board. 

The County Board of Education in each county have 
authority to establish a teacher's institute in their county, 
or the Boards of any number of counties may join in 
establishing one for the several counties so co-operating. 

Each county is laid off into school districts, the con- 
venience of each neighborhood being consulted. In each 
district there is a school committee consisting of three 
persons. It is the duty of the committee to provide 
school houses, employ teachers, and give orders for the 
payment of the sums due for their services, and take at a 
stated period a census of the children within school age. 

The compensation provided for teachers of the first 
grade is left to the discretion of the committee ; that of 



49 

teachers of the second grade is twenty-five dollars a 
month ; that for those of the third grade is fifteen dollars. 

The schools for the two races are separate ; the districts 
the same in territorial limits, or not, according to the con- 
venience of the parties concerned. 

The financial arrangements with respect to the chools 
fund give the most absolute secnrity for its safe custody 
and proper application. It is collected by the Sheriff and 
by him paid to the County Treasurer. It is drawn by a 
written order of the district committee, which order is 
countersigned by the County Superintendent. The school 
fund, it will be seen, is handled by none but bonded offi- 
cers, and paid out under the most effective checks for its 
proper disbursement. 

For the purpose of training teachers, and thus giving 
unity to methods of instr>]ction, and the greatest effi- 
ciency to its practical working, ten Normal Schools are 
established — five for the white and five for the colored 
race — and an equal fund is appropriated to the Normal 
Schools for each race. Within the last few years graded, 
schools have been established in all the principal towns; 
of the State, and the number is yearly increasing. 

The provision for higher education is ample. Private- 
schools for both sexes are numerous. The principal 
institutions for the education of boys and girls are of the 
highest order. 

At the head of the institutions of learning is the Uni- 
versity of the State, an institution established in pursu- 
ance of the Constitution, and maintained in part by 
annual appropriations. Science and learning in their 
widest range are their taught by professors eminent in 
their several branches. Second only to the University 
are the denominational colleges of the State, each having 
a corps of learned professors and tutors. 

KELIGION. 

The people of North Carolina are almost entireh^ Prot- 
estant, of various denominations ; but all sects are 
equally free before the law. 



50 



THE PEOPLE OF THE SECTIOIS". 
Their Character. 

In all those things which stamp a high moral impress, 
no people can look back upon the past with more pride 
than those of North Carolina. From the foundation of 
the colony, they have always been noted for those traits 
of character which give the greatest security to the State, 
to society and the family. They have always upheld the 
exercise of constitutional authority ; the social duties 
they have always appreciated and observed ; and by 
none have the domestic ties been more prized aud cher- 
ished. Industry, frugality and social order have marked 
every stage of their existence. Yet more, reverence for 
truth — especially revealed truth — and a sacred regard 
for business engagements have been ingrained in them. 

An obseryer would be at once struck by the homoge- 
niety of the people, and with the agreeable spectacle of 
two races living in harmony on the same soil and under 
the same laws. The first is rare in this age of migration, 
and particularly in this country, but is easily explained 
by the natural barriers to commerce which excluded 
variety of pursuits and made the State essentially an 
agricultural community. The conservative disposition 
and tastes which these modes of life nurtured repressed 
any effort to make known the resources of the State, and 
to attract settlers. But under the stimulus of our system 
of railroad transportation which has, in a measure, re- 
dressed our natural disadvantages, the new order of 
things, brought about by the war, and through the 
necessity of cultivating smaller farms and the consequent 



51 

surplus of lands in market, a new spirit has character- 
ized the people and turned a general desire toward 
immigration. 

In regard to the harmony existing between the two 
races, Governor Jarvis, in his annual message to the 
Legislature, in 1881, said : 

"The two races are working together in peace and 
harmony, with increasing respect for each other. The 
€olored population, I am glad to say, are becoming more 
industrious and thrifty. Many of them are property 
owners and tax-payers. They seem to be learning the 
important lesson that they have nothing to rely upon but 
their own labor. I have tried, on every opportune occa- 
sion, to impress this lesson upon them, and to assure 
them of the sympathy and hearty co-operation of the 
white race in their efforts to make themselves good and 
useful citizens. They have held during the past two 
years, in the city of Raleigh, two industrial exhibitions 
that were exceedingly creditable to them, I attended 
both of these exhibitions, and made short addresses, and 
was glad to see that the efforts of the colored race in this 
direction found so much favor and encouragement among 
the whites. I regard it as an imperative duty from which 
the whites cannot escape, if they would, to see that in all 
things full and exact justice is done the blacks, and that 
they are not left alone to work out their own destiny. 
They are entitled, by many binding considerations, to 
receive aid and encouragement from the whites, in their 
efforts to be better men and w^omen, and I have no doubt 
will receive it." 

The events of the i^ast two years have confirmed the 
justness of this official statement. 

The natural increase in our population has been greater 
than that from natural and foreign sources in most other 
States, and now ranks it as the fifteenth in the number of 
its inhabitants in the Union. It increased from 1,071,361 
in 1870 to 1,399,750 in 1880, and can now be safely esti- 
mated at 1,500,000. Classified by the census according 
to sex there were in 1880, 687,908 males, and 711,842 
females ; by race, 867,242 whites, 531,267 colored people, 



62 

1,230 Indians and one Japanese. The aggregate popula- 
tion consisted of 270,994 families, living in 264,305 dwell- 
ings. The number of persons to a square mile was 28.81, 
the number of families 5.58, dwellings 5.44. The number 
of acres of land to a person 22.21, to a family 114.78. 
The number of persons to a dwelling 5.80 ; to a family 
5.17. 

The percentage of increase from 1870 to 1380 was 30.06 ;. 
of density of population eight per cent. 

Distributed according to topography 421,167 of the- 
population live on the South Atlantic coast, 743,739 on 
the Interior Plateaus and Table Lands; and 283,654 in 
the Mountain districts. According to the same distribu- 
tion 208,771 colored people live on the South Atlantic 
coast; 300,236 on the Interior Table Lands; and 27, 270- 
in the Mountain districts. 



58 



THE ALBEMARLE COUNTIES. 



BERTIE COUNTY. 

Area, 720 square miles; population, 16,401. It is at 
the head of Albemarle Sound, and was formed in 1722 
from Albemarle County, taking its name from James and 
John Bertie, who surrendered their proprietary rights to 
the English crown in 1729. The County of Bertie is the 
largest in the Albemarle Section. Cotton, corn, potatoes, 
peas and native grasses and early vegetables are the agri- 
cultural staples. Shingles, staves and fish are largely 
exported. The soils are light, loamy and richly alluvial. 
Cotton is king in Bertie and holds its sceptre with an 
iron grasp, though the introduction of new crops, such 
as rice and peanuts, threatens to diminish the kingdom. 
No richer lands are to be found anywhere than in Bertie 
County, and the advantages offered to'the agricultural im- 
migrant, with the average assessed value of lands at $3. 39 
nn acre, are not surpassed anywhere. Extensive bodies of 
pine, cypress and juniper timber are to be found in the 
-county, and oaks in smaller quantities ; thesupjDly of ash 
and the gums is apparently exhaustless. Quantities of 
shingles are made in the swamps. Many parts of the 
county are especially adapted to fruit culture, apples, 
peaches, pears, melons and Scuppernong grapes being 
grown extensivel3^ Bla(;kberries, strawberries, whortle- 
berries, cranberries and a variety of grapes are among 
the indiginous fruits ; but the people have yet to learn 
to turn these to such j)rofitable account as in other parts 
of the State. No county in Eastern North Carolina 
possesses better natural facilities for stock raising; as fine 



54 

pasturage as there is in the world is found in the marshes 
or Roanoke bottoms. Luxuriant growth of native 
grasses spring up everywhere, and there are thousands- 
of acres of reeds that remain green and afford the finest 
grazing the year around. This land, when cleared, is 
very productive, but much of it is subject to overflow 
from freshets in the Roanoke River. It cannot therefore 
be cultivated in corn or cotton, but it would be impos- 
sible to find conditions anywhere more favorable to the 
cultivation of low land rice. What splendid stock farms 
and rice plantations they could be made. There are 
more than fifty miles of available seine ground along the 
coast of Bertie Coanty ; and on the sound shore 'several 
of the largest seines in the world are operated as pre- 
viously described. Bertie County has no railroad, but its 
transportation facilities are very good, owing to its exten- 
sive water courses. The Roanoke, Norfolk and Balti- 
more Steamboat Company's steamers and connecting lines 
reach into the county in almost every direction and 
brings its products to Edenton for shipment over the 
Norfolk Southern Railroad. That part of the countjr 
along the Chowan River is also well provided with trans- 
portation service. There are several small villages in 
Bertie, Windsor, the county-seat, being the most impor- 
tant. 

CAMDEN COUNTY. 

Area, 28,009 ; population, 6,274. It was founded in 
1777, and named in honor of the Earl of Camden. It lies 
between the Pasquotank and North rivers. The soil 
varies considerably, the sandy and dark loams predomi- 
nating. The surface is as flat as a floor, land fertile and 
yields well under fair treatment. It is adapted to the 
grains, grasses, cotton, potatoes, peanuts and trucks. 
Corn is the leading crop, then cotton and potatoes. Pine, 
cypress, oaks, gums, juniper, poplar, and maple are 
among the varieties of valuable timber. The fruits are 
apples, peaches, pears, and melons, which are grown to 
a considerable extent. The productions of the county are 
marketed mainly via Norfolk, which they formerly 



55 

reached through the Dismal Swamp Canal, the southern 
terminus of which is near South Mills. This slow and 
uncertain means of transporting perishable goods neces- 
sarily checked the development of an industry for which 
the conditions of soil and climate are favorable. Upon 
the ojDening of the railroad this interest became impor- 
tant. At South Mills Dr. F. N. Mullen and others are 
engaged in the business on a large scale, and the farmers 
along the line of the railroad are beginning to give it at- 
tention, induced by advantages of quick transportation. 
Through the country, sweet corn, garden peas, Irish po- 
tatoes, onions, beans and cabbage are the chief varieties 
raised. ■ Camden County has as fine corn land as can be 
found in North Carolina ; what is locally known as the 
''Lake," near the line of the railroad, is particularly fer- 
tile. One hundred and ten bushels of corn per acre by 
actual measurement have been raised in this neighbor- 
hood without the aid of manure ; while this was an ex- 
ceptional yield, under favorable conditions, much of this 
land is capable of producing fifty bushels per acre. It 
has a rich soil very similar to the famous corn lands of 
Hyde County. 

Sheep raising is something of an industry in Camden, 
and with good protective legislation, would become suc- 
cessful. In the lower part of the county net fishing is 
carried on to a considerable extent, though less so than 
in some of the neighboring counties. 

There are two incorporated towns in the county, both 
creations of the last legislation. South Mills is situated 
on the Dismal Swamp Canal, about twelve miles north- 
east of the court-house. It is connected by water with 
Elizabeth City and Norfolk. The population numbers 
about 300. It has two churches, two cotton gins, a corn 
husk factory, a Masonic hall, a fiourishing academy, two 
grist mills, two blacksmith shops, and two stores. Shiloh 
is in the lower part of the county on the Pasquotank 
River. Its shipping goes to Elizabeth City by the N. S, 
R. R. Co's steamer, " M. E. Roberts," whence it is for- 
warded over the road. The village appears to be thriv- 
ing and has good trade. Most of its buildings are new. 



56 

It may be mentioned as a matter of interest, that a few 
hundred yards below Shiloh is the site of the first Bap- 
tist church built in the State of North Carolina. 

CHOWAN COUNTY. 

Area, 240 square miles; population, 7,900. Chowan 
was one of the original precincts of the Lords Proprietors, 
taking its name from a tribe of Indians. Along the 
water courses the soil is mostly a sandy loam, a clay 
soil in the interior, and in places the dark black soil of 
the bottoms. All the cereals, hay, potatoes, peanuts, 
cotton, melons and other trucks, lumber and fish are the 
staples. Of the field crops cotton and peanuts predom- 
inate, more of their staple being cultivated, and the 
yield, perhaps, larger than in any other county east of 
the Chowan River. No county in the section has uni- 
formly better lands ; new crops are being constantly 
added, and the farmers are rapidly learning the new 
methods of agriculture by which substantial prosperity 
is to be attained. There are extensive truck farmers 
around Edenton and in other parts of the county, the 
annual truck products being large. The introduction of 
the peanut crop within the past three years marks a new 
era in the agriculture of this county, the yield being as 
large as 100 bushels per acre in some localities. The 
land is specially adapted to grape culture, and quantities 
of Scuppernong, Concord and other grapes are cultivated 
for shipment. Other fruits are raised in quantities for 
market, especially pears. The fishing interests of this 
county are among the largest connected with this indus- 
try, there being about a dozen large seines, some of the 
largest in the world. The locality is especially favorable 
to the fisherman from its transportation facilities, by 
which the principal part of the catch is forwarded by 
rail from Edenton. Edenton, the county-seat, is the 
second largest town in the Albemarle section. Popula- 
tion, about 1,500. It is beautifully situated on Edenton. 
Bay, an arm of Albemarle Sound. The town was named 
in honor of Charles Eden, the Royal Governor of the 
Province in 1720. It was settled in 1716, and was origin- 



57 

Silly called Queen Anne's Creek, and disputes with one 
or two others the distinction of being the oldest towm in 
the State. For awhile it was the Colonial Capital and 
the chief seaport of North Cai'olina. Tlie Episcopal 
Church, St. Paul's, the existing records of which bear 
•original date in 1701, was built in 1780, and the court- 
house fifty years later from brick bronght from England. 
Both buildings are in a good state of preservation. 
Edenton has about forty stores, two good hotels, a barrel 
factory, saw mills, several coach and blacksmith shops, 
four white and three colored churches, an academy and 
several flourishing j)i"ivate schools, besides public schools 
for both races. It is the southern terminus of the Nor- 
folk Southern Railroad and has improved very percep- 
tibly since that road was built. The steamers of the 
Roanoke, Norfolk and Baltimore Steamboat Company 
bring to its wiiarves large freight from the trans-sound 
•counties for shipment over the railroad, and by means of 
these steamers direct and speedy communication is had 
with all points on the Roanoke and Cashie rivers and 
the surrounding country. A line of steamers up the 
•Chowan and Blackwater rivers connect with the railroad 
.at Franklin, Va. 

CURRITUCK COUNTY. 

Area, 200 square miles, population, 6,476. Tliis is the 
•extreme north-eastern county of North Carolina. Like 
the previous county it was one of the original precincts 
of the Lords Proprietors, and was also named from a tribe 
•of Indians. Between the mainland and the narrow strip 
•of ocean coast is Currituck Sound. The sandy loam soil 
predominates, though clay loam and other stiff soils are 
to be found in places. The cereals, cotton, peas, potatoes, 
melons and other trucks, wild fowl and fish are the 
•chief products. The average of corn and potatoes is larger 
than of any other field jjroducts. Its timbers are pine, 
•cypress, gum, poplar, oak and juniper. The waters of the 
sounds are stocked with fine food fishes. 

There are no large seines in the county, although a 



58 

large number of the population are engaged in fishing^ 
set nets and other appliances being used for this purpose^ 
Norfolk is its principal market, being easily accessible 
over the N orf oik Southern Railroad, which passes through 
the county from north to south, having three stations within, 
its borders and one Just over the northern line, and by 
one of that Company's Steamer lines from Powells Point, 
the lower end, to Elizabeth City. Perhaps the most dis- 
tinctive feature of Currituck, other than agricultural, is- 
its immense game interests. Currituck Sound is a most 
inviting field for sportsmen. From October to February, 
it is the resort of millions of ducks, geese, swan and other- 
water fowl. Canvas backs, red heads, black heads, mal- 
lard and dozens of other highly prized varieties of ducks- 
are abundant. 

Immense " rafts " of these fowl, often miles in length, 
may be observed in season upon the shallow waters of 
the Sound, feeding upon the wild celery and many kinds, 
of grasses that cover the bottom. Instances are numer- 
ous in which a single gunner has bagged several hundred, 
of these fowl in a day' s shooting — several dozen at one 
shot. The shooting for the main part is done from. 
" blinds," a device of reeds and brush arranged to conceal 
the sportsman, and "batteries" — a coflin-like boat sunki 
to the water' s edge, with an outside moveable flange at 
the top to keep the water out. The sportsman thus hid- 
from view, is able to get within gun- shot of the fowl in- 
tently engaged in their feeding. " Decoys" are employ- 
ed to entice the birds within range of the gunner. These- 
decoys are either live fowl anchored to the spot, some- 
times trained to call their wild relatives, or wooden, 
images of them. Along the shores of, and on islands in,, 
the Sound are a number of "clubhouses" owned by 
Northern sportsmen, who visit the locality to enjoy the- 
shooting every season, reached ma the Norfolk Southern^ 
Railroad at Snowden Station. These clubs own extensive 
acres of marsh lands, which are favorite resorts of the birds. 
In acquiring these marshes, erecting club houses, pre- 
serving the game, and in shooting it, too, large capital 
has been invested, which helps to bear the taxation of 



59 

the county, and employs many persons. The principal 
clubs are : — 



The Narrows Island, 
The Palmer Island, 
The Monkey Island. 



The Currituck, 
The Swan Island, 
The Lighthouse, 

The number of wild fowl killed each year in Currituck 
Sound by non-resident sportsmen is something enormous. 
Numbers of residents of the county gain almost their 
entire livelihood by shooting fowl for the market. No 
reliable figures can be given of game annually shot in 
Currituck Sound, and shipped to Norfolk and the 
northern markets, but the total is large and thousands of 
dollars come into the county from this source every 
year. Snipe shooting on the marshes is very fine at 
certain seasons, and the lower end of the county abounds- 
with deer, bear and other game. Another important in- 
dustry of this count}^ is trucking. Along the line of the 
Norfolk Southern Railroad are wide areas of land well 
adapted to this purpose. Since the comiDletion of the 
road the business has steadily increased. Peas, cabbage, 
potatoes and other trucks are raised. 

Powells Point, the southern extremity of the county, is. 
well adapted to watermelon culture, it being the staple. 
The melons are of unusual size, fine quality and mature 
early, consequently seldom fail to bring the market's 
best price. Other truck crops are raised in this vicinity ,^ 
and year by year the acreage is steadily becoming larger.. 

DARE COUNTY. 

Area, 270 square miles. PoiDulation, 3,243. The county 
was formed in 1870 from the counties of Tyrrell, Hyde 
and Currituck, and named in honor of Virginia Dare, 
the first white child born on the continent, that event 
having occurred within its present limits on Roanoke 
Island, as elsewhere stated. 

A greater portion of the lands of Dare County are 
swampy in the mainland, and pure white sand on the 
beach. There is some fine land on Roanoke Island, near 
the mouth of the Alligator River, and on Pamlico Sound. 



60 

Corn, peas, potatoes, grasses and vegetables are best 
suited to these lands. The staples of the county are 
lumber and fish. There are large bodies of splendid 
juniper and cypress timber in the swamps ; especially the 
country tributary to the Alligator River, and a large ex- 
port timber business is done, very little being manu.fac- 
tured in the county. What has been said of the natural 
facilities for stock farming in Tyrrell County applies with 
equal truth to Dare, for the conditions here are precisely 
similar and the area adapted to the purpose vast. 

Everybody in Dare County is either a fisherman or a 
life-saving serviceman on the beach, and there are 105 so 
employed out of an adult male population of less than 
700. 

Fishing, as described elsewhere, is the chief interest of 
iihe county, employing four immense seines, as large as 
any in the Albemarle section. Numbers of small seines, 
varying in length from 50 to 300 yards, are operated 
with quantities of stake nets. Oysters, clams, crabs and 
terrapin abound in great numbers. 

The bottom of Pamlico Sound for miles is one vast 
oyster bed. 

Nags Head, a popular resort of eastern North Carolina, 
Is on the banks opposite Roanoke Island. Nature has 
provided it with advantages for a summer resort pos- 
sessed by few places on the Atlantic Coast. 

It is about fort}?^ miles south of Elizabeth City, with 
w^hich it has connection in summer months by the fine 
steamers of the Old Dominion line. Other steamers and 
numbers of sailing craft supply connection with all 
points of the Albemarle section and be^yond. 

About five miles from the eastern shore of the mainland 
of Dare County, and three miles from the beach, is Roa- 
noke Island. It is surrounded by four sounds : Albemarle, 
Roanoke, Pamlico and Croaton. Man teo, a little hamlet 
of fifty people, doing a business of $35,000 annually, 
chiefly in fish, is the county-seat, and is named from the 
Indian chief who was the first of his race to embrace the 
Christian religion and receive its ordinances, on the 13th 
of August, 1584. 



6L 

HYDE COUNTY. 

Area, 430 square miles; population, 7,765. Hyde 
County was one of the original precincts, and was named 
in honor of Edward Hyde, who was governor of the col- 
ony in 1711. Its eastern and southern shores are in- 
dented with great numbers of creeks and bays. The 
rich, loose, black soil predominates Corn, cotton, wheat, 
oats, rice, peanuts, lumber and oysters are the staple 
products. Pine, cypress, juniper, gums, oaks, holly, 
maple, and nearly all of the other valuable varieties of 
timber in the Albermarle Section are abundant Almost 
In the centre of the county is Mattamuskeet Lak<-, an 
imposing sheet of fresh water, covering more than 100- 
square miles. 

The predominant feature of Hyde county is its soil 
and its remarkable growth of corn, which is described 
by Prof. Ebenezer Emmons, a former State geologist, as 
follows: "Some tracts have been cultivated over a cen- 
tury, and the crops appear to be equally as good as they 
were at an early period of their culture, and yet no 
manure has been employed, and they have been under 
culture in Indian corn every year, or what would be 
equivalent thereto. If this crop has been omitted wheat 
has been substituted for it, not because they are jjroperly 
wheat soils, but if they are uncultivated the weeds 
acquire a size that it is impossible to cover them the next 
year. The same difficulty occurs, in part, in the culture 
of corn, the stalks are so numerous and large that it is 
difficult to bury them so completely that they shall be 
concealed, and preserve at the samie time an even, hand- 
some surface. The peculiarities of the soil of Hyde- 
county are comprised in two particulars — 

" 1st. The large quantity of vegetable matter they con- 
tain. 

"2d. The extreme fineness of the intermixed earthy 
matter. 

"The earthy matter is invisible, in consequence of its 
fineness, and is evenly distributed through the mass. 
An inspection of it, even under a common lens, will de- 



62 

ceive most persons, and they would be led to infer that it 
was entirely absent. Unlike other soils, it contains no 
coarse visible particles of sand, and hence it appears 
that during the growth of the vegetables, which cover at 
least one-half of the soil, it was subjected to frequent 
overflows of muddy water, or else the area over which 
these peculiar soils prevail was usually a mirey swamp, 
which communicated with streams which brought over 
it the finest sediment of some distant region. This sedi- 
ment is frequentl}^ a fine grit, and fine enough for hones, 
and when the vegetable is burnt off it appears a light 
drab color. The character of the Hyde County soil has 
never been understood ; the cause of their fertility has 
never been explained, and many persons who are good 
judges of land have overrated the value of swamp lands, 
in consequence of the close external resemblance they 
have borne to those of Hyde. Analysis, however, will, 
in every case, detect the difference between the common 
swamp lands and those of Hyde. The color is black or 
dark-brown, and the whole mass near the surface looks 
as if it was composed entirely of vegetable matter. We 
see no particles of sand or soil in it. On the sides and 
bottoms of the ditches a light grey or ashy soil is discern- 
able. Indeed it is regarded as ashes, and is so called, 
and is supposed to have been formed by the combustion 
of ancient beds of vegetable matter. 

The cultivated lands of Hyde are not chaffy, that is 
when dry, like timber, liable to take fire from a spark, or 
ignited by a gun-wad. There are, it is true, tracts lying 
in connection with them of this character, which are 
quite limited, but their occurrence does not affect this 
general characteristic. It is necessary to dwell further 
upon the points I have stated respecting the characteris- 
tics of these remarkable soils. It will appear in the 
sequel that there is great uniformity in the composition 
of these soils, both as regards the amount and condition 
of the vegetable matter and the quantity and condition 
of the fine grit intermixed with it. 

Regarding as I do these soils as the proper standard 
for the valuable swamp soils of the eastern^section of the 



63 

State, I have subjected many samples to a rigid chemical 
analysis. The results of these analyses have thrown 
much light over them, and explains satisfactorily their 
steady productiveness for long periods. It will appear 
that their fertility is due not only to their vegetable 
matter, but also to the composition and condition of the 
earth in combination with it. A number of analyses from 
tracts which without manure have born a crop of Indian 
corn for more than one hundred years (as shown by the 
records of the courts and reliable tradition), none of 
which show any deterioration by their long cultivation, 
show that the great supply of nutriment still holds out, 
and the one hundred years to come, if subjected to no 
greater drain upon its magazine of food, will, at such a 
distant period, continue to produee its ten or twelve bar- 
rels of corn to the acre. In order to test the value of a 
soil which has borne a crop for upwards of one hundred 
years (the ownership and cultivation could be traced back 
six generations), and during the whole period have not 
received a bushel of manure, I selected a parcel of it at a 
■distance from buildings, or from a spot which could not 
have received any artificial aid, and comparing the re- 
sults of this analysis with soil from adjoining lands that 
have been under cultivation only three years, it was per- 
ceived that all the elements of fertility which belonged to 
the new and unexhauted soils still belongs to those 
which have been under cultivation during the last cen- 
tury, and it might be a rich soil at the close of the next 
■century. 

The maize must be ranked among the most exhausting 
■crops, and it is evident that poor soils will scarcely repay 
the farmer for its cultivation. It is evident that unlike 
■other cereals, there is little danger of using too much 
manure in its cultivation, as it will bear almost any 
amount without injury, provided all the elements of fer- 
tility exist in the magazine of food provided for it 
While it must be admitted that maize is an exhausting 
crop, it is equally clear and conclusive that it is one of 
the most important and valuable, and hence it may be re- 
garded as one that pays best. 



64 

The foregoing remarks respecting the maize crop have 
been made in consequence of the peculiar adaptation of 
the soil of Hyde County to this cereal. It is the granary 
of the South. It is true that the number of bushels per 
acre which constitutes the average crop is less than the 
number frequently made on other kinds of soils. Thus, 
a hundred bushels of corn may be grown upon an acre, 
but the Hyde County soils rarely exceed sixty bushels 
per acre : but from fifty to sixty bushels are grown an- 
nally per acre for an indefinite term of years, without 
the expense of fertilizers, while the heavy premium crops 
lequire 2i great expenditure of them ; and these have to 
be repeated in order to keep the ground in good condi- 
tion, and hence, in the long term of years, the profits 
of those rich lands greatly exceed those which are only 
moderately so, naturally, and require every few years 
an installment of manure, "It will be useful in pass- 
ing," to compare the swamp lands with the prairies of 
Illinois, on another tract of the great West, whose 
characteristics have drawn westward so many emigrants 
from IS'ew England, New York and the Old World. 

A prairie soil of Illinois is usuall}^ black or brownish 
black, from an intermixture of earthy and sandy matter. 
It has a basis or subsoil of stiff yellowish clay, and such 
is the nature of this soil, that it has borne a succession of 
crops of maize for thirty years, and even more, without 
manure. These lands are better adapted to maize than 
wheat, and partly so for the same reasons that this crop 
succeeds better in all the swamp lands than wheat. Be- 
sides, the open prairie lands are swept in the Avinter by 
strong chilling winds, which injure wheat by rooting it 
up. Such influences must bear annually upon lands thus 
exposed. The crops of corn are larger than in Hyde 
County, but whether they sell for as much money is 
quite doubtful. 

A prairie crop often reaches a hundred bushels per acre. 

The farmers of Hyde seem to be contented with sixty 
bushels per acre, and at the same time we see no reason 
why they too might not increase it to one hundred 
bushels. 



65 

Hyde Comity soils show a greater capacity for endur- 
ance than the prairie soils of Illinois, notwithstanding 
the annual crop is somewhat less per acre. Bnt on the 
score of location we are unable to see that the Illinois 
soils have a preference. As it regards health, Hyde 
County is no more subject to chills and fever than the 
country of the prairie. It is a remarkable fact that per- 
sons live and labor in swamps with impunity or freedom 
from disease.* 

Most varieties of fruit do well in Hyde County, and the 
delicious Mattamuskeet apple, a native, grows to a perfec- 
tion not obtained elsewhere. The bottom of Pamlico Sound 
for the entire length of this county is one of the finest na- 
tural oyster fields in the world. In many places it is 
covered with natural oyster beds, some of which produce 
oysters of delicate flavor — notably the Far Creek oyster. 
Hyde County enjoys adequate transportation facilities. 
The Norfolk Southern Railroad Company's steamer, 
"M. E. Dickerman," runs between Elizabeth City and 
Fairfield, on the north side of the county at the head of 
the Alligator River, and affords ample accommodations 
for freight and passengers. 

The steamers of the Old Dominion and other lines 
place the southern portion of the county in direct com- 
munication with Newberne, Washington, and Elizabeth 
City. Swan Quarter in the county is a small village situ- 
ated at the head of Swan Quarter Bay, an arm of Pam- 
lico Sound. Fairfield is a thriving little town on Matta- 
muskeet Lake ; a canal four miles long connects it with 
Alligator River. 

MARTIN COUNTY. 

Area, oOU square miles ; population, 13,140. 

Martin County was formed in 1774, and named in honor 
of Josiah Martin, the last Colonial Governor of North 
Carolina. Much of the soil is a sandy loam ; in manj^ 
places it is a dark loam with a sub-soil of clay. Rich 
deposits of blue and j^ellow marl underlie the surface 
soil in many places. The staples are cotton, corn, rice, 

* Report on the Swamp Lands^ l>y Walter Gwinn, 1867. 



66 

peanuts, potatoes, lumber and shingles. Cotton is tlie 
main crop, and the acreage annually cultivated is larger 
than any other county of the Albemarle Section, Bertie 
alone excepted. Cypress, the gums, ash and pine are the 
most valuable kinds of timber to be found in large quan- 
tities. Beech is very abundant along the banks of the 
Hoanoke. The manufacture of shingles by hand and 
machine, and other lumber is one of the most important 
industries of the county. Considerable timber is taken 
outside the limits of the county, and even the State, to 
be manufactured, notwithstanding there are many large 
mills in Martin and adjoining counties to be supplied. 
The condition for stock raising, as described in the 
sketch of Bertie County, exist quite as favorable in 
Martin County along the Roanoke. 

The territory adjacent to the river is subject to over- 
iiow, but the freshets are seldom great enough to do 
serious damage, and are serviceable in removing shingles 
and other lumber products from the interior of the 
swamps. The transportation facilities are all that could 
be desired, and within the past four years have improved 
greatly. The Albemarle and Raleigh Railroad traverses 
the entire county, from the Wilmington and Weldon 
Railroad at Tarboro to its eastern terminus at Williams- 
ton. The steamers of the Roanoke, Norfolk and Balti- 
more Steamboat Company, plying between this point 
and Edenton, supply the link which connects this road 
with the Norfolk Southern Railroad, affording the people 
of Martin the most direct and quickest route to Norfolk 
and the North. By this arrangement the people along 
the Roanoke River are within twelve hours of Norfolk, 
twenty-four hours of Baltimore and thirty hours of New 
York. Other steamers of the Roanoke, Norfolk and 
Baltimore Line ply directly between points on the 
Roanoke and Norfolk ;ind Baltimore. There are four of 
them in nil, three good sized iron steamers having been 
added within the past three years. 

Williamston, cm the Roanoke, is the county-seat of 
Martin. It has a population of 7;"}0 and a large trade. 

Twenty miles above by water, on the Roanoke, is tfco 



67 

beautiful prosperous village of Hauiilton, with about 500 
people, and a trade of near $250,000 per annum. James- 
ville on the Roanol^e, fifteen miles below Williamston, is 
connected with Washington by the Jamesville and 
Washington Railroad. 

PASQUOTANK COUNTY. 

Area, 240 square miles; population, 10,380. The 
county was founded in 1729, was one of the original 
precincts, and is named from a tribe of Indians. The 
land is fertile, yielding well without the use of fertilizers, 
and always with a little assistance. Its staples are corn, 
cotton, potatoes, wheat, oats, rice, hay, sorghum, truck, 
lumber, shingles and lish. As in all the counties of this 
belt the soil varies, but is chiefly alluvial and sandy. 
Considerable quantity of truck is raised along the line of 
the railroad and shipi3ed to the northern markets. In 
the northern part of the county are large bodies of valua- 
ble Juniper, c}' press and pine timber, much of which is 
now sent to Norfolk to be manufactured. In this section 
the lands are specially adapted to the cultivation of corn, 
peas and peanuts, and large yields are often obtained ; 
as much as one hundred and twenty bushels of corn have 
been raised on a single acre without manuring. Hay, as 
a good money crop, is gaining favor with the farmers, 
especially since the highly successful experiment of 
raising it for shipment made by the Rev. G. W. San- 
derlin on his extensive California plantation, about 
eight miles northeast of Elizabeth City, on the line 
of the Norfolk Southern Railroad. This hay ranks with 
the best Northern article, and three tons to the acre is 
not an unusual yield. Between two broad, deep rivers, 
with the great Albermarle Sound on its southern shore, 
an inland canal to Norfolk, and the Norfolk Southern 
Railroad cutting it almost squarely in the middle, Pas- 
quotank County enjoys extraordinary transportation 
facilities. The county has recently built at a cost of 
;$5(),000, one of the largest and handsomest court-houses 
in North Carolina. Elizabeth City, the county-seat, is 



68 

finely situated on the Pasquotank River, and is the- 
largest, and in all respects the most important town irt 
this section. By the census of 1880, it had a population 
of 2,315. To-day the population is hardly under 4,000, 
which is an evidence of the benefit of the Norfolk South- 
ern Railroad and its connecting steamer lines. New peo- 
ple have moved in, dozens of stores have been built, the 
costliest and handsomest in the section ; many residences 
have been erected, some of the best class. The value of 
permanent improvements made in this town within the 
past four years will amount to several hundred thousand 
dollars ; property of all kind has advanced in value ; the 
volume of business has exj)anded, and more general pro- 
gress has been made than for over twenty-five years pre- 
vious to this time. Elizabeth City has over a hundred 
stores, five hotels, one of them as large and handsome as- 
any in the State, two saw and grist mills, two planing 
mills, a carriage manufactory, a net and twine factory, a 
cotton seed oil mill, two brickyards, one to press brick, a 
steam cotton gin, an oyster-packing establishment, five 
blacksmith shops, a ship yard, three newspapers, three 
Job printing offices, a bank, three livery stables, a theatre, 
a beer-bottling and soda establishment, a handsome and 
commodious academy, and a number of private and pub- 
lic schools, a normal school for the colored race, a State 
normal school for the white race, four churches for whites 
and two for colored. It has an excellent harbor, and in 
the centre of trade of a large section of country. The' 
Norfolk Southern Railroad places it in easy|reach of all 
points north and south. 

The two steamer lines of this compai^y open up to it a 
large trade in Hyde, Tyrrell, Dare, Washington, lower 
Currituck and Camden Counties, and establish direct 
communication with these communities ; the splendid- 
steamers "Shenandoah" and "Newberne," of the Old 
Dominion Steamship Line, pile upon its wharves the 
products of the Neuse and Pamlico sections for shipment 
over the Norfolk Southern Railroad, the quickest route 
north ; a line of small steamers plies through the Dismal 
Swamp Canal to Norfolk ; and innumerable sailing craft 



69 

connect it with the remotest parts of the large territory 
lying on the great sounds and rivers of this section. Two 
lines of telegraph, north and south, put it in easy speak- 
ing distance with the world. What wonder that with 
such a stimulus the town should increase in size 40 per 
cent, and in importance fully 100 per cent, in the short 
space of four years, and continues to grow and prosper? 
Nixonton, a small village on Little River, once the 
county-seat, is reached by the Norfolk Southern Railroad 
Company's steamer "M. E. Roberts," which takes its 
products to Elizabeth City. 

PERQUIMANS COUNTY. 

Area, 220 square miles. Population, 9,468. This was 
the earliest permanent white settlement in North Caro- 
lina. It has the same variety and gravitation of soil as 
the other counties north of the Albermarle Sound. All 
the grains, cotton, hay, potatoes, peanuts, sorghum, 
truck and many kinds of fruit are grown to perfection. 
There are twelve saw mills and four shingle mills in the 
county, and a large amount of lumber and shingles is 
annually manufactured. There is more corn raised than 
of any other cereal, cotton next, more wheat is grown 
here than in any county north of the sound, and of a 
superior quality. The soil being well adapted to the cul- 
tivation of wheat and oats, of which large quantities 
were once raised and can be again when the farms are 
restored to proper condition. Timothy grass Avas first 
discovered in the lower part of this county and intro- 
duced to the public notice. Beds of marl underlie nearly 
this entire county, coming to the surface in many 
places where they can be easily worked. 

About it>20, 000 capital is invested in fisheries, which give 
■employment to about 175 laborers. 

Sheep-raising is becoming an important industry, and 
the conditions are very favorable to stock-raising. The 
Norfolk Southern Railroad runs through the county, and 
lias five stations in its limits— more than any other county 
along the route. Like the other counties forming this 
belt, Perquimans has very many advantages in the way 



70 

of transportation facilities, and what has been said of 
them relative to the impetus thus given to trade, may be 
as truly said of it. The culture of Scuppernong grapes, 
especially in the northern part of this county, is a new 
and profitable industry. Last year one thousand barrels 
of these grapes were shipped to northern markets from 
the immediate vicinity of Belvidere. As an illustration 
of the value of these lands for trucking purposes, it may 
be mentioned that from a two-acre lot at Hertford a crop 
of snap beans has been marketed this year at a clear 
profit of one hundred dollars. Twenty-five dollars worth 
of apples were sold from the same lot, besides two barrels 
of vinegar made and a quantity of fruit wasted. The 
same land is now in cotton, with every indication of a 
good yield, which will bring the total clear profit from 
the two acres to more than two hundred dollars. Yet 
there are hundreds of acres of land in the county to be 
bought for ten dollars or less per acre, that can easily be 
made to do as w^ell. 

Hertford is the chief town of Perquimans, and the 
county-seat. It is situated on Perquimans River, about 
twenty miles from its mouth, the whole distance being 
navigable for vessels of large size. It is a town of about 
800 population, with a land-tax valuation of .i^75,000. The 
market value of this property is perhaps double that sum. 

There are twelve retail stores doing a business of more 
than $200,000 annually ; two coach shops, two blacksmith 
shops, three churches for the white race and two for the 
colored, a large and beautiful academy, one white public 
school and one colored, a telegraph line, a steamer line 
to points on the Perquimans River and Norfolk, and rail 
connections north and south. 

TYRRELL COUNTY. 

Tyrrell County bears the name of John Tyrrell, one of 
the original owners of the province, and lies between the 
Scuppernong and Alligator rivers. A large preponder- 
ance of the lands of this county remain uncleared ; they 
are level, requiring drainage. When properly drained 
they are not surpassed in productiveness by the best 
lands in the section. Cotton, corn, rice and iDotatoes are 



71 

the chief products ; the other staples are lumber, shingles 
and lish. Immense tracts of valuable timber are to be 
found in this county, and millions of feet are cut 
annually. The varieties most abundant and most 
worked are cypress and juniper, which is transportep 
outside of the State to be manufactured, and millions of 
shingles are made every year, the timber business em- 
ploying a large capital and hundreds of laborers. Mucli 
of the county is adapted to stock raising, and this busi- 
ness is conducted more largely than in any other county 
of the Albemarle Section. The cattle are allowed to run 
wild in the swamps, feeding on lich growth or reeds 
always fresh and green. No attention whatever is paid 
them but to mark the young stock and to hunt down the 
animals like other wild beast when wanted. Thousands 
of wild cattle thus roam the swamps at large, never com- 
ing out to the cleared land except when pinched with 
hunger in severely cold weather. There is no organized 
system of stock farming in Tyrrell County, though a num- 
ber of men own herds numbering hundreds. Extensive 
bodies of this land are still held by the State; Ihey could 
be entered at ti-iHing cost and converted into as tine stock 
ranches as exist in the world. They could be en- 
closed, too, with wire fencing at an inconsidei-able cost, 
and under intelligent management the business would 
yield a handsome profit. Not only reeds and native 
grasses for the cattle are superabundant, but a variety of 
native roots and nuts that make the best of food for hogs. 
Of these a kind of wild "chufa" and "tuckahoe" root are 
the most prized. Hogs live on them and require no other 
food, except in winter season. No section has superior 
advantages for raising bees, and nowhere are they to be 
found in greater quantities than in the southern part of 
Tj^rrell County. None of the approved appliances for 
bee culture are used here. When it is desired to take the 
hone}^ the entire hive is condemned to death. They are 
worth about $2.00 a stand and will yie]d$4.50 annually in 
lioney and wax, besides the natural increase of one and 
one-half swarms per hive. Formerly there were operated 
along the shores of Tyrrell County some of the largest 
seine fisheries on the Sound ; but they were destroyed in 



72 

the late war, and for want of capital have never been 
refitted. The fishing operations now are conducted chiefly 
by Dutch and set nets, of which there are a great num- 
ber. The product of these fisheries are very large. 

Tyrrell County has very good transportation facilities. 
One of the Norfolk Southern Railroad Comi3any's steam- 
ers, " M. E. Roberts," runs from landings on the Scup- 
pernong River to Elizabeth City, another of the Comi^any' s 
steamers, " M. E. Dickerman," offers adequate service to 
the people of the Little and Big Alligator rivers. Both 
connect at Elizabeth City with the railroad. 

Columbia, the county-seat of Tjrrell, is well situated 
on the Scuppernong River. It has a population of about 
200, and a good local ti-ade from the surrounding coun- 
try. 

WASHINGTON COUNTY. 

Area, 350 square miles ; population, 8,028. 

The county was formed in 1779 from Tyrrell County. 
Its staples are cotton, corn, rice, lumber and fish. All 
the small grains, hay, peanuts, potatoes and truck are 
grown. The soil varies greatly, with a preponderance, 
perhaps, of the sandy loam peculiar to all the counties 
of the Albemarle section. Cypress, juniper, jjine, the 
gums, poplar, ash and maple are the most valuable tim- 
bers, though nearly all the timbers know^n to this section 
grow here. There are no large seines in the county, but 
quite a number of Dutch nets and stake nets, which take 
fish in considerable quantities. 

Trucking is quite an important industry in some parts 
of the county, esj)ecially in the vicinity of Plymouth. 
Shingles and lumber are largely manufactured. Some 
of the land is well adapted to fruits. 

The lands of Washington County are generally pro- 
ductive, and yield bountifully without the use of fertiliz- 
ers. Especially is this the case in the vicinity of Lake 
Scuppernong, a beautiful island basin of fresh water, 
nine miles long by seven wide. The surface of this lake 
is several feet above the level of the sound. Great canals 
lead to it from the splendid farms bordering upon it. 
The soil here is a black, vegetable loam, of precisely the 



73 

Tiature of the tine corn land of Hyde County. Fort}- and 
fifty busliels of corn per acre are often obtained. 

"Tlie culture of rice, as now pursued in this State, de- 
mands express notice. Though the crop has been a 
staple in North Carolina since its earl}^ existence as a 
colony, the awakened spirit of enterprise among our 
people has transferred to nnd domesticated it in coun- 
ties and sections of the State where it was never culti- 
vated before. It may thus take its place among new 
industries. This crop presents a singular instance of the 
revolutions which are accomplished b}^ the break np of 
old systems of industry and the introduction of new 
systems. Before the termination of the war, the valley 
of the Cape Fear possessed a monopoly of this crop in 
this State. That event broke up the old system of laboi', 
:and broke down the culture of this crop there. It was long 
supposed it could be grown only under the peculiar con- 
ditions to be there found. But during the war rice was 
furnished as an article of food to troops, and it was an 
article of food generally accessible to the people. These 
circumstances combined led to general experiments in its 
cultivation, and these experiments proved it could be 
grown upon low-lying lands, up to the foot of the moun- 
tain range. The introduction of upland rice gave a still 
further impetus to its cultivation. This new industry — 
new because under conditions so different from those ex- 
isting before — has now become an established and a most 
important one. It has become a staple crop in counties 
where none was produced a few years ago. The county 
of Hyde alone produces now, if such statistics as are 
.accessible to us may be trusted, nearly as much rice as 
the entire Cape Fear valley produced before the war." 

It is grown probably to some extent in each of the 
Albemarle counties, but it is one of the principal pro- 
ducts of this county, and is successfully cultivated in the 
rich soils about the lake, the waters of which, through 
the canals leading from it, can be utilized for inundation. 

Rice culture has been for some years intelligently and 
extensively prosecuted by Mr. C. L. Pettigrew, upon his 
;several plantations in the county ; by his neighbor, 



74 

Mr, Arthur Collins, and also upon the adjoining planta- 
tion owned by Mr. H. H. Page, of Edenton.* 

These lands have been constantly in cultivation for 
years and years, and appear to be inexhaustible. Much 
fine land in this section is covered with a small wooded 
growth, and could be readily cleared and cultivated. 

Washington County is by no means lacking in the 
imi)ortant respects of ample transportation facilities. 

The Norfolk Southern Railroad Company' s Steamer, ' 'M. 
E. Roberts," brings the products of the rich Scuppernong 
Section to Elizabeth City for shipment over the the road ; 
another runs direct to Norfolk. Steamers leave Plymouth 
regularly for points in the surrounding country, and direct 
for Norfolk and Baltimore. Daily connection is made by 
steamers from Plymouth with the Norfolk Southern Rail- 
road at Edenton, the most direct and quickest route to 
NorColk and beyond. 

Plymouth is the county-seat of Washington and one of 
the most important towns in this section. It has a popu- 
lation of 1,500 and does an immense mercantile retail busi- 
ness. It has many lai'ge stores, several hotels and ample 
church and school facilities. Among the more important 
industries is the Plymouth. Iron Works, the only establish- 
ment of the kind in eastern North Carolina. This institu- 
tion does a flourishing business. Considerable historic im- 
portance attaches to Plymouth on account of the part it 
took in the late civil war. Three times was it in the scene 
of conflict. First, was its attack and capture by the Con- 
federates (Col.Wm. P. Martin's 17th N. C. Reg.), under Lt. 
Col. John Lamb, Dec. 10th, 1862 ; second, the memorable 
battle of Plymouth, lasting over three days, April 2d,1864, 
between thelJn ion forces under Gen'l Wesselsand Lt. Flus- 
ser of the Navy, and the Confederate Genl's R. F. Hoke, 
and M.W. Ransom, and the Confederate iron clad "Albe- 
marle," which ended with the capture of Plymouth by rhe 
Confederates, and with it Genl. Wessels and 2, 200 prisoners. 

The U, S. steamers, Southfield and Miami, were sunk 
and many lives lost ; the Confederates lost heavily during- 
the assault. Third, the re-capture of the town and dis- 
traction of the "Albemarle" by Lt. Gushing, IT. S. Navy, 

in October. 1864. 

* Hand Book of North Carolina. 



75 



APPENDIX. 



The following tables, compiled from the Compendium 
of the U. S. Census, 1880, were prepared with reference 
to the North Carolina State Exposition of 1884, at a time 
when it was supposed that two counties — Gates and 
Hertford — included in the table but not in the descrip- 
tive pamphlet — would unite with the Albemarle Counties 
in their exhibit. 

As the information ptertaining to those counties is 
valuable, it has been retained in the tables. 



76 



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77 

POPULATION BY RACE OF THIRTEEN ALBEMARLE COUNTIES, 
NORTH CAROLINA, CENSUS 1880. 



^ COUNTIES. 


WHITE. 


rOLOKED. 


Bertie 


6,815 
3.701 
3,633 
4,495 
2,875 
4,973 
4,424 
5,122 
6,661 
4,S55 
4,795 
3,110 
4.554 


9,584 


Camden 


2,483 


Chowan 


4,267 


Currituck 


1 081 


Dare 


368 


Gates 


3,924 


Hvde. .., 


3,. "41 


Hertford 


6,721 


Martin 


6,479 
5,514 


Pasfiuotunk . ... 


Per(|uimans 


4.671 


Tvrrell 


1,435 


Washington 


4.374 








60,103 


55,142 



ASSESSED VALUATION AND TAXATION, ALBEMARLE COl'NTIES, 
NORTH CAROLINA, 1880. 



Assessed Valiation-. 


TaX.\TK)X. 


COUNTIES. 

REAI, 
ESTATE. 


PERSONAL 
PROPERTY. 


TOTAL. 


STATE. 


COINTV. 


CITY, 
T(»\V.\ 
A.M) 

vilVje. 


TOTAL. 


Bertie $1,202,097 

Camden. . .. 363,439 

Chowan 570,101 

Currituck. . . 327.592 

Dare 111,507 

Gates 456,345 

Hyde 397,285 

Hertford.... 848,875 

Martin...... 952,639 

Pasi|U0tank'. 863,662 
Per<[uimans. 720,533 

Tyrrell 222,629 

Washington. 453.479 


$533,131 
149,405 
238,809 
190,113 
98,577 
333,423 
288,620 
441,843 
478,554 
308.438 
301,510 
169,9^6 
2 10,. 303 


$1,735,228 

512,844' 

817,9101 

517,705! 

21- ^3- 

•789.768' 

685,905 

1,290.718 

1,431.193 

1,172,100 

1,022,043 

392,615 

663.872 

$11,241,985 


$7,739 
2,513 
3,715 
?.192 
. to 
3,502 
4,001 
5,468 
7,194 
6,362 
.5,701 
1.695 
3,689 
$.-)4,911 


$7,811 
5,861 
5,550 
3,026 
2.507 

6^438 
8,440 
6,287 
13,260 
9,519 
2,025 
3,536 


$450 
1,400 

350 

225 

2,200 

260 

7,000 

280 

$5,236 


$16,000 

8,374 
10,665 
5,218 
3,647 
6.804 

14^258 
13,706 
21,822 
15,480 
3,791 
7.505 


$7,499,183 


$3,742,802 


$77,.-)62 


$137,709 



78 



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K.U O O ft O K K S Ph Ph E-1 ? 



THE ALBEMARLE EXHIBIT. 



This pamphlet has beeufprepared for distribution through the 
medium of the North Carohiia State Exposition, and the Exhibit 
of the Section which it describes. 

That Exhibit does not, however, fully and properly represent 
the Section. For reasons not to be explained within the limit of 
this paragraph, the work of its collection and preparation did not 
begin until late in July, when an Agent was selected to collect 
and display the Exhibit. The difficulty of canvassing eleven 
counties, and collecting and preparing information, in the 
time allotted, may readily be imagined. 

The season for obtaining many representative products of the 
Albemarle Section had passed before the work of preparation was 
assigned to an Agent ; notably fish, water fowl, sheaf grains and 
most of the fruits — of which, therefore, a partial display only is 
possible. Three- fourths of the timber shown has been procured 
since September 1st, and no attempt was made to prepare 
fruits in any form before September 15th. 

The hope is expressed that, in passing judgment on the 
Albemarle Exhibit, the public will take these facts into con- 
sideration. 

F. E. V. 



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